Hilarious Bookbinder writes on male competence and enumerates examples:
Competence is when you can do things like this, without much effort or fanfare:
- Change a car tire
- Change your car’s oil
- Perform minor bicycle repairs, including fixing a flat in the middle of a ride
- Install a new flapper valve in the toilet
- Replace a sink that is not built-in
- Rewire a lamp
- Install new lawnmower blades and replace the serpentine belt on a riding mower
- Assemble flat-pack furniture
- Drive a stick shift
- Cook a restaurant-quality meal beyond merely grilling burgers (although that too)
- Navigate by reading a map
Metacompetence is when you can do those things never having done them before. When you think, “this lamp needs rewiring. How hard can it be? I’ll figure it out.” Then you do, and it is no big deal. When you arrive at an unfamiliar foreign city with only a tourist map in your pocket and get around just fine. When you follow a recipe to make beef Wellington for the first time and it comes out like the picture. Life’s not a video game, and this isn’t about gaining skills to “level up.”
I nailed most of them. I’m not sure what “a sink that is not built in” means–I replaced the kitchen sink at Nogglestead not long after we moved in. Although everyone knows I cannot rewire a lamp without Nico’s help. I haven’t done the blades on my lawnmower, but I did replace the deck belt this year (again). And as far as restaurant quality meals, I don’t order steak out because I generally grill it better. And! I once made manicotti from scratch to impress a girl, including the pasta–which, to be honest, confused me–what is this eggs and flour and oil bit? Oh!
Although, again, to be honest, when assembling flat-packed furniture, I often install one thing upside down and have to redo it the right way. And on trips to New York and San Francisco, I’ve also gone in exactly the opposite direction of my intention. So maybe “metacompetence” is not my core competence after all.
The only thing I don’t actually know I can do is to fix a flat on a bike. I haven’t had a flat on a ride yet, but that’s probably because I haven’t ridden as much as I could have.
Still, I’m better by his reckoning than Robert Heinlein’s:
A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.
