Blog 2041 – 04.27.2021

A Learning Disability

A learning disability is a tragic thing to consider and we all have experienced one first hand when we find it quite impossible to get our hearts and minds around a particular lesson that we have tried to grasp, but just seem to be unable too.

I had a difficult time learning reading my first few years of public school and in middle school I was completely stumped by what was way back then called “modern math” but my very first learning challenge was the, to me at least, subtle and indistinguishable difference between P’s and 9’s. My first grade teacher must have thought I was just messing with her and refusing to make my 9’s with the round bump at the top facing left but more like P’s with the top bump facing right. She got so upset over that, to me at the time, seeming insignificant difference. I just could not see it her way and the harder she tried to force me to, the more impossible the situation became.

I suppose that early “learning difficulty” experience is at least part of the reason that the First Intention for a Better World immediately appealed to me and I got it before I grasp the deeper meaning of the other ten: Here are all ten, if you will read them aloud just once a day for a month they can revolutionize your world view.

Learning, grasping anything new is like that. I quoted a wiser person than myself yesterday who coined the expression, “If we learn but one new thing each day what a knowing and wise person we would all become after ten thousand days.

Ten thousand days calculates to just over twenty seven and one third years. I dare say during the first three years that most of us learn many new things each day, but for most all of us some time in our late to early teens or not much later the rapid learning slows for us till by our late twenties we are thought exceptional or bookish or too progressive if we entertain even one new thought a day.

Scientists say that the human brain is not fully matured until twenty six, give or take a year or two. Though I never heard or at least recall hearing that expressed when I was in my teens or twenties, I do recall that automobile insurance rates for boys/men dropped quite a bit when they reached the age of twenty-six, and that my dad married my mom at twenty-six, probable the wisest move he ever made, so I guess the insurance companies and my dad were aware of the science even then. Girls/women are said to mature faster and to be more mature than boys/men, under twenty-six for sure. I might have disputed that fact when I was younger. I have not for many years.

You see I believe, despite the famous funny quote, that there are few things that are absolutely facts. The quote goes: “The philosophy professor stated categorically that there are no absolutes, therefore that statement is false.” I concede that new evidence can often prove what we assumed to be facts were just guesses after all. What I do not concede is the many false equivalences that people unversed in the rules of debate and science use to defend their rejection of many plain and easily provable facts. There are no alternative facts only alternative opinions, and I am trying to be magnanimous, regarding attempts to misinterpret the facts.

That is the rub even for those who have written rules i.e. sacred books or legal documents like constitutions full of rules and regulations. The lawyers, politicians, preachers, and pundits will always stay busy explaining was “is” is or putting theirs particular spin on things even while claiming to be in a “spin free zone.”

I get it, especially if there is some profit motivation, the absolute truth or plain facts can be interpreted or reinterpreted. However, the truth or plain facts have I believe a ring to them. If one listens carefully from the heart they will most assuredly hear a still small voice saying, “Amen, to that” or an equally distinguishable, “That just is not so.” Trouble is that at some point too many at adulthood or actually just short of it quit not just entertaining new thoughts but even really listening close enough to hear that still small voice.

I recall, as if it were yesterday, when I was nineteen years old hearing my dad plead with me, “Son, you don’t have to make all the mistakes yourself, you could learn from some of mine if you just would.” I remember thinking how wise my response, “Dad, you got to make your mistakes, let me make mine.” It was, I realize now, a very stupid and immature remark. I could have spared myself, my parents, my friends and my loved ones, a lot of pain and concern, but I had to foolishly learn, the hard way.

The ultimate parent, perhaps all parents, have thought at sometime, if not said aloud, “This is a stiff necked generation with a terrible learning disability.” If we must experience something first hand to learn our lesson we indeed have a serious learning disability. Good luck with that.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uIBN6KC4u0Ocj3IW1HqxvStytcMo90D4/view?usp=drivesdk

I’m Not Who I Was