An expert is someone from out of town with a briefcase. No, really, an expert is someone with domain-specific knowledge. Who probably has spent years studying and practicing something. When I want to benefit from expertise, I find a book written by an expert, and I read it and try to understand it. And I try to follow the instructions from the expert.

I don't read four books written by four different experts, think I know better than any of them (or them all put together) and then put together my own set of instructions, which I then don't even follow, and then give unrelated people unsolicited advice about it. Because I'm not, then, an expect.

[everybody's a critic]

A half hour of morning picking yields 1.5 pints of fresh ripe raspberries. Even factoring in the cost of driving to the store, I'm sure I could have bought them cheaper. So why am I so happy?

Warming my hands on a cup of hot coffee inside, picking bugs out of my berries, I think it must be this: bringing a bowl full of fresh-picked raspberries up to bed is the best way in the world to wake up my wife.