Playing the system.
כ"ב סיון תשס"ח

בס"ד

All my life, at least since age 10, I have gotten by by playing the system. I was warned about it, "if you don't work now you won't make it in university." That didn't speak to me so much. I heard the same thing put differently recently: I would rather have you come home with D's having worked your hardest rather than straight A's and not having cracked a book.
When I learned to play the guitar I went for lessons and I really wanted to know how to play and the instructor even asked me, do you want to learn how to play or how to play a few songs, but in the end I just took a couple of lessons and learned a few tricks to get me by, but I haven't made any progress in guitar since probably the first year that I started playing.
Worse yet, saxophone and clarinet, I couldn't get to the point of improv, my teacher later said that if I had asked him he would have taught me, but I didn't even think to ask.
Worst of all, when I finally found Judaism right under my nose and I wanted to go all the way with it, I also managed only to play the system, I have not gone beyond, broken out, found the ultimate expression of myself through Torah.
But now, after the first brain surgery I thought that it would be efficient to heal up and get back to work right away and I was unclear about the lessons that I should take from the experience. So God let me have it again, this time worse, and not getting better, I have been housebound all week with a cough, itchiness from the drugs, bleh.
I keep reading about playing the system vs., well I'm not sure what right now, perhaps true growth through Torah.
I even got married by playing the system. I mean, it has all come out quite nicely, but it seems that God would like more out of me, for my sake.