Wie geht's?
Part 5 in Ryan Holiday's provoked self-assessment series asked the fundamental questions: How does your mind work? Why does it work that way?
That took some thinking about (the self-examined life's not easy remember). That wasn't meant to be a smart alecky comment, instead it points to how my mind works.
I can still remember a moment of crystal-clear clarity as I walked home from a late lecture on Chaucer at Auckland University in my early twenties. I looked at the trees in Albert Park and I had a bullet-to-the-head revelation - I could see things distinctly for the first time.
My teenage boy fog had finally lifted, and I could see clearly now. It pointed to how my consciousness had bloomed at University and I found I could now reflect in a deep and sustained way.
I have always had the ability to focus intently on something. In the early days it was a book, or a TV programme, or while I was playing football. Mum would often say the house could be burning down around me and I wouldn't notice.
I'm still like that - ask my students or Jacky. I really really really block out things when I'm concentrating intently. When they break into that concentration, I can get quite frustrated. Why can't they see that I'm deep into it? That kind of frustration. I do get that I could be the only person alive with this ability (and there it is - my sarcasm).
I've strayed into personal qualities a tad but that's also how my mind works at times. It's why I love the Seinfeld eye roll so much. It also points to my refusal to take things too seriously - there's always a (sometimes inappropriate) laugh bubbling away under the surface.
I've digressed. My brain/mind is heavily biased toward language and communication. That's why I need this blogging business; that's why I'm an English teacher (the perfect job for me); that's why I can't live without music.
Why does it work that way? Obviously, my mother and father can take a large dollop of credit for that. After all - they made me.
[My sometimes smart alecky approach is mine alone, as are my many other faults].
My father and I were very different people. I do not have his scientific mind (Ross is a clone), but I do share his analytical approach, his slight aloofness, and some of his social awkwardness (my struggle with phatic communion).
From my mother I inherited her openness, her passion for things, her sense of humour, her love of communication (although, unlike me, she could talk on the phone for hours).
In the past I've failed to see my father in me, but I now recognise how much I am a composite of them both.
I realise I've only just scratched the surface of these two Ryan Holiday questions, but they are things I'll continue to chew over in my mind. Ha ha!
Love and peace - Wozza
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