Thursday, October 29, 2015

We learn to not speak.

Motivation to learn, in my case Japanese high school students' motivation to speak English, is a very important part of my job as a educator and I dedicate a lot of my time trying to figure it out.  I have distilled the broad spectrum of motivation down to the most relevant form for my purposes - desire.  Desires are emotions, but unique in that they cannot remain within the heads and hearts of the individuals who birth them.  They must be shared.  This isn't a conscious effort however.  No one cuts out time in their day to share a desire, they just do it.  Sharing a desire is as automatic to our existence as dry-heaving when we pass by a pile of vomit.  In fact, the birth of desires and our automation to share them is so natural it is the universal defining characteristic of all children on the planet.  It is so epitomic of children that if a one does not incessantly share it's desires, we are likely to consider the quietude of this child a mental disability, despite the fact that the main form of socialization as a child becomes an adult is to chill out with the sharing.

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Evolution in Real-Time #2

I hurt my foot doing something Yesterday.  It could have been due to digging my left foot into a crevice on the ceiling of an overhang and using it to secure the majority of my body weight in a stable position parallel to the ground as I let go of my right hand causing me to swing out from under the precipice of the overhang and reach with that same hand for the next hold.  Or it could have been due to my running back to my office to retrieve some documents I forgot for my 2 pm class, causing the lower part of my left inner Soleus muscle (anyone feel free to correct me here) to stretch more than it has since high school, yet this over-extension not showing up in the form of pain until I was upside down with my left foot wedged into a wall wondering how the hell am I going to get down from here and out of this pain.

Saturday, October 3, 2015

Some nutshells are harder to crack but Me, Pinker and Gazzaniga seemed to have done it.

What nutshell do I speak of?

Consider the following conversation between a husband and wife:

W - "Honey I am not feeling good"
H - "What's wrong?"
W - "Beth"
H - "Oh my goodness.  I am so sorry.  Come here"

And they embrace each other.