What does it say
about the people I know that the last three emails I wrote had the
phrase "sorry to hear that ..." in the first sentence? One was to
my brother, who's having his boy gland zapped, which isn't bothering
him, and hormone treatments, which are. The second was to an ex B&N
coworker who needs to have surgery on her neck in November to fuse parts
of it together, and the third was to a friend who's mother is ill enough that she's moved in with her.
She said the highlights of her days are when she walks the family dog. It says that I'm gittin' old.
If
I was in my twenties, I bet a lot of my emails would say things
like, "So happy to hear you're getting married!", "Congrats on the
promotion!" and "You're buying a house? Cool!" Of course, when I was in
my twenties email was something known about and used by only tech geeks
for exchanging things incomprehensible to people like me.
That picture reminded me of "Hidden Figures", one of my favorite movies.
ReplyDeleteOne of the many movies I've been meaning to see but haven't for years now, maybe because any movies with math and smart people in them bring up old traumas. I'll try to give it a look.
DeleteI really liked Hidden Figures as well. You could watch the trailer to test your anxiety levels re math and smart people, although I imagine it’s been quite some time since they were triggered. I base this on all the recent (last decade) “man on the street” interviews on tv or YouTube when media personalities ask such questions as “Who won WWII?” or “Who did we fight in our War for Independence?” or “Who won the Civil War?” or “Who is our Vice President.” Usually these interviews take place on a beach in California, the streets of NYC, or a university campus, and involve 6-20 minutes of various people answering the same question. Based upon the answers I’ve heard, conclusions have been drawn about national benchmark intelligence levels, and said conclusions point toward the exponentially decreasing probability of your “smart people” anxiety levels being in any danger of triggering. Of course, a whole new anxiety may develop regarding the future of humanity, but perhaps that’s not so personally impactful, so less alarming.
ReplyDeleteJimmy Kimmel does that sometimes. Not long ago they asked people to name any book and they couldn't. Of course, they're just showing the people in those things who fit the negative parameters they want for comedy.
ReplyDeleteI have mental blocks about math, technical things, and learning foreign languages that have held me back in life. The blocks may be psychological, but they feel almost physical, like there's a fire door inside my brain that slides shut.
Thank you for mentioning the fact I often overlook, that they’re only showing the people who fit their parameters, because that makes me slightly less fearful for the future of humanity. Going forward, when I feel stunned and begin to despair for the human race (à la Idiocracy), for people who can’t remember the name of any book, I’ll remind myself I’m not watching a pure unadulterated scientific sample, but a thoughtfully edited one, so things may not be as bad as I fear.
ReplyDeletePeople often like to believe that life is worse than it is. (Not that I'm accusing you of that.) They don't read beyond the headlines and they fail to see context. For example, children now often live in bubbles, overprotected by parents who think pedophiles lurk around every corner because of scare headlines about how the incidence of bad things have doubled since 1953. What they don't take into account is that the population of the U.S. has doubled since then. There are many other examples I can think of, but I won't go on about it now.
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