THERAPUTIC

Albert Einstein once said that he had no particular talent, that he was just incredibly curious. Anytime I find something I can identify with that puts me in the same mode as Einstein I milk it for every drop. Obviously, the passion that drives my wanting to know does not measure up to A.E. but still, it takes me places that expand my world even if but a little bit. In my world, everything I see begs a question; Why this? How does that work? I would wonder why the setting sun glows orange one evening and white-hot, retina burning on the next. How is it that birds can fly and when I left the door open or tracked in dirt, sometimes my mom got mad and other times not; why is that? The school of life provides us with much of our understanding just by being there. A 2 yr-old starts figuring out the why’s and how’s without a lesson plan and the school up the road accelerates the process. In the army, in 1960, I decided I wanted to read better. At the time I was reading at about the 5th grade level, that of most news papers and magazines. I had friends who were taking a speed reading class at the base exchange. They shared with me, some of the exercises they did to read faster and for better comprehension. I was taxed just to identify words as they came, one word at a time. There was no context at the end of a paragraph, only the last word. So I started reading Stars & Stripes, the military news paper; speed reading and re-reading. At the end of an article I quizzed myself on the content, reading it again if need be. Then came magazines and paperback novels, Zane Gray westerns mostly. My reading improved.

In college I re-read everything several times. I improvised a crude shorthand system and took detailed notes. Many classes, I was able to get by without too much reading. But there was still lots of bookwork and I used tricks I learned in the army; read fast and read again, and again. I adopted a strategy where I needed to understand for the sake of knowing and I needed to pass exams. In the latter case, B’s were good enough and a C here or there wasn't worth losing sleep over. There were times when I was writing more than reading. When your philosophy professor and biology professor start correcting your grammar and paragraph structure as well as the object lesson, you start paying attention to syntax. I began to learn my native tongue like I was supposed to in high school. 

By then, my 3rd year, writing to satisfy someone else’s expectations, I found myself sitting in the library, writing down words that came from the voice inside my head. The inner-self had found its voice and I was listening. Writing in self defense does two things. It reinforces the connection between organizing-processing complex thoughts and ideas, and that requires good languare. There is another aspect of writing that one cannot appreciate vicariously. Remembering details that are filed away in long term memory is no simple task. Everything that comes in, as the day wears on, is filed away on a need to know basis. Trivial bits and pieces that don’t figure into the meat of the day may be lost forever. Some days, many days that are not particularly memorable will be filed away so deeply that those memories cannot be retrieved. 

It’s ever so easy to slip into a comfortable mood where you bundle the brain-mind collective into one package. Brain is one thing, like the mother board or logic board in a computer. The mind is the computer full of data, turned on, running, producing an outcome. When you want to remember something but can't recall, it’s because you can’t access that memory, not because it isn’t there. Writing about day to day experiences, feelings, ideas, etc. creates networks and connections in the brain that raises the likelihood of remembering. I remember with detail clarity a day when my firstborn was about 6 months old, I was on my back, holding him up above me, wiggling left and right and he was delighted, giggling and burbling. His mother had him in a pair of red bib pants and a blue pullover. He opened his mouth to laugh and a great string of viscous drool stretched out and down from his lip. As it hung over my face I had time to think about my options. I could change what I was doing and avoid the slobber or I could ignore it and keep playing our little game. We kept on playing. The drool came and went without incident. I wrote about that little vignette in the notes I had begun keeping. I remember the part I wrote about but nothing else about that day or the day before or the day after. 

I don’t know who reads my stuff but whoever pauses here, in my journal or blog, if you are not already listening to that internal voice, the one that will speak if only you listen; if you are not writing down, recording your day to day experiences and ideas then I encourage you to begin. You are never too old to begin; it's not a diary and you don't have to write every day. It doesn’t matter what you believe about your ability or the worth of your experiences. Someday, you will reach back for something and it will either be there on your finger tips or you will come away empty. With age comes the point of diminishing returns; being alone and lonely catches up to us all if we live long enough. We save our money because we will need it some day. No less the treasure trove of story, the simple tale of one day at a time; a simple kiss, a woodpecker drumming, the smell of fresh plowed earth, a string of gooey slobber.