— — A recent column in this space about the myriad effects of personal technology (smartphones si, singing toothbrushes no) mentioned the curse of lifelong learning, that carousel of constant vocational training and retraining forced by a life on a globe spinning faster and flattening faster than society can cope, and that’s where the commentators keyed this in this week’s virtual mailbag.

Don’t get me started on the joys of perpetually and consciously learning things. I’m the guy constantly extolling libraries, Ken-Ton’s Community Education program, distance learning and searching for good music and erudition, instead of whatever, on the Internet. The guy who part-timed his way through several college degrees, the latest (I hesitate to use the term “last”) at an age at which “congratulations” and “you’re blocking the aisle, grandpa” were equally appropriate responses.

So I value, deeply, the blessed non-stoppedness of learning in this land. It’s society’s insistence on it I find disturbing, to keep a job, to learn and relearn, to junk the must-have skills of just a few years ago (incidentally, I haven’t seen you lately on MySpace).

It does not have to be a desperate game of constant catch-up, I recently learned.

I am informed that law firms these days are filling up with personnel who learn, and work in, a career for number of years, then attend law school and emerge from the other side with a professional proficiency and a legal specialty.

Meet the Slash. The nurse-slash-lawyer. The engineer-slash-lawyer. The biologist-slash-lawyer. Older, wiser, armed with a formal education both broad and specific and with a demonstrated skill set that includes an appreciation of lifelong learning.

These are the people who’ll be clogging your upcoming job search, college seniors.

This admirable sort of thing went out of style for while as a generation or two of aspiring achievers concentrated on unambiguous and narrowly described fields of expertise (until those concentrations were deemed outmoded). Although I regret to observe it has taken the vagaries of a fickle job market to bring it back, I’m thrilled by the return of the semi-specialized generalist. May she live long and prosper, and inspire the young to follow her.

Society and the job market buffet these people as much as anyone, but I suspect they’ll endure relatively less bouncing and wafting in the wind, and more self-directed landing where they choose to land.

Advertisers rate celebrities with something called a Q Score, a likeability rating of what people think of the person — good vibe or bad vibe — and what would happen if that star was someone’s spokesperson. Kelly Ripa, Bill Cosby and most female figure skaters have high Q Scores, Charlie Sheen and Simon Cowell not so much.

Benjamin Franklin, were he able to answer the phone right now, would have a high one. Historically an interesting and likable guy. You remember Franklin, the ultimate Slash, printer, publisher, writer, inventor, musician, nation builder, essayist on the value of beer, bon vivant, diplomat, maker of his pile early in life so he could concentrate on wine, women, song and dealing with punks like John Quincy Adams.

Becoming a Slash is already a part of some people’s lives (“major in chemistry, minor in theater”). It can become ingrained if one treats each enterprise as a learning experience, be it work, sport, parenthood, hobbies, the household arts or coping with one’s spouse’s relatives. A cool way to live, with positive manifestation for the self and for the society, as Franklin might have put it.

He’d also likely regard that approach as his ace in the hole, although there is little record he was a card player. Too busy perfecting himself, flying kites, chatting with the ladies and posing for the hundred-dollar bill.

Anyone in need of a role model could do worse than a versatile dude like Benjamin Franklin, who was 85 when he died in 1790. Slash was his middle name.

Ed Adamczyk is a Kenmore resident whose column appears every Friday in the Tonawanda News. Contact him at EdinKenmore@gmail.com.