Confusion is in the details

Perhaps because recently we have had the younger terror tested for intelligence and mode of learning — no results yet, but soon — I’ve been thinking about my mode of learning.

Other things have fed into this meditative mood, including a blog post by Scott Adams the creator of Dilbert about what your permanent age, on the assumption that each of us has a very defined age, that sticks with us through life. (It is perhaps interesting that I have no idea what my permanent age might be, but I know what my older son’s is. Robert is fifty three. He was fifty three at birth, looking out witheringly at his father and I as we scrambled through the trials of early parenthood. You COULD hear that child think “Ah! Whipper Snappers.”)

You see, I’ve always felt younger than I should be an curiously incomplete or unprepared for adult life — and part of this is due to the way my mind works. I don’t think — though I couldn’t tell you for sure — it is a NORMAL thing for a mind to work this way. At least, looking around, it seems to me that other people’s minds, in general, are the opposite of mine.

And I guess I shouldn’t say I always felt this way. The truth is, when I was little I felt vastly superior to my class mates and the few people stupid enough to talk to me. You see, I started reading early and glued on just enough understanding of the world to sound interesting and curiously adult to adults and scary and vaguely deranged to people my age.

But then came adollescence…

All of a sudden, my friends knew the names of singers and bands, and what albums they’d published. I knew what songs I liked and constructed wild, poetic interpretations of often misunderstood lyrics.

They watched the news and came away with names places and “Don’t you remember on the twenty seventh of november the Economics Minister said…” And no, in fact, I didn’t remember. I just had a broad idea of where people stood, and I could argue philosophically on their principles and tell you what they were doing and why — but not the specific dates and times of the incidents.

The same with books. I read about six books a day throughout most of my young years — well, till Robert was born. I’m wondering if I’ll return to that after the kids leave — still my normal mode of operating while doing anything, including scrubbing the floor, is with a book on one hand and whatever I’m doing in the other. This accounts for my owning several types of book stands to keep the book out of harm’s way.

But I only remembered the writers that resonated with me, and even with those I was likely to retain a vividly accurate idea of what the book was about for years and years while forgetting specific incidents in the book — the sort of thing all my friends seemed to remember vividly.

Now I’m facing this with the younger squirt. He’s reading Heinlein — to be specific, he’s reading Have Spacesuit Will Travel — and he has odd demands that I remember specific characters and incidents. Now, mind you, I re-read Heinlein every so often, but again, the specific incidents in the book evade me.

So when Eric comes into the room and says “Tell me Ace dies a horrible death,” I can say calmly, and with absolute certainty. “Oh, sure, he and his buddy get eaten by worm face.”

Total confusion from the short one (I have to stop calling him this, as he’s in fact my height) “He does? How does he get to space?”

“What? Isn’t Ace one of the two space pirates?”

“Mooooooooooooooooooooooom! Ace, you know? Burning soap wrapper?”

“What? Oh, you’re talking about throwing the can in the disposer?”

“No, MOM. Burning. Soap wrapper.”

Yes, we eventually solved the confusion, but now Eric is convinced I’m irretrievably stupid. And this is, of course, one of the big issues of not remembering details. You get elbows-deep in an argument and you know — just know — you’re right. But you’ll be cursed — and possibly d*mned — if you remember the specific dates, times and places that support your view.

Now, part of being middle aged is, I suppose, coming to terms with who we are and how our minds work. And how my mind works is to give me a very accurate picture of forces at work, of what each person — and each organization — wants. Very useful for writing historical fiction and not really a problem when I’m surrounded by my books or google. I can always check details and glue them on temporarily. I can actually remember dates and names for about a year, when needed. Then they sink into the generalities that fill my mind.

So, while I can write historical novels set in Louis XIII France or Elizabethan England, or even WWI (eventually, eventually) — I sound like a total ignorant idiot when discussing specific incidents that took place at this time. And while I can tell you the vast sweeping movements and my favorite incidents in my favorite authors’ series, I’ll sound like a lunatic when you asked if I liked Lieutenant such and such in book two.

I’m not sure what this makes me. I’d like to think it makes me a generalist because I know a lot about a lot of things and see the big picture, even if the details evade me. On the other hand, it’s quite possible it makes me an idiot.

At any rate, it seems to be who I am and at this point in my life I have no time to fight my own brain as well as deadlines and characters.

Mind like a stainless steel grease trap and all, I’ll try to make the best of what I have. er… whatever that is.