scooters and feelings

2021-03-25

I found my old scooter over by the office building, and was trying to get it home.

The engine kept stalling so I ended up having to push it a lot of the way. And there were tons of obstacles too. Had to get through a huge crowd of protesters by the capital blocking the road. They were helpful though and shouted at each other to clear a path so I could get through. The hard part was the barricade of trash and dirt and leaves they had built across the road behind them. Had to go up on the grass to go around. But then I got into the neighborhoods and was scooting around trying to get home, but got lost.

Got home eventually and dropped it off. By then it was time to go back to the office again. I decided to cut through the old high school, and again got a little lost. I found a door and poked my head out trying to get oriented, and then a football player behind me with his arms full of gear was behind me trying to use the same door so I held it open for him.

He started complaining about how the coaches were making him do all these strength checks and he didn’t want to do them because he didn’t see what good they were.

I told him how there are two kinds of learning. One is rote learning, learning by copying the right way to do something, whether you understand it or not. Like running drills at practice. You don’t have to think about it too much. You just have to do the work.

And the other is a kind of discernment. The ability to notice a familiar pattern in a novel situation. The football player might have to defend against a play he’s never seen before. But if he can find an element of it that is familiar, then he’ll probably be able to respond appropriately.

After he considered this for a moment he decided he felt better about his predicament and showed me that on his feelings chart, his feelings were in fact up in the green!