Education. What is it? Frankly, I don't know. That, however, is a good fact to admit. Start first with your understanding of what you don't understand. Then, and only then, can you decide whether you want to understand more.
Many of my students don't understand binary and hexadecimal numbering systems and why they're the basis for computing. Talked with my wife and she suggested going to the basics of turning a light bulb on and off, then lead into decimal counting (such as how do we go from nine to ten - we mark a one where ten is and start counting one through nine again), then show how binary is the same, just with a smaller digit set. Hopefully, that will work for my students.
Meanwhile, I've got to decide what I want to understand. Part of me has no allegiance to my ancestors. After all, they're long since dead and gone. The only thing left of them is me and my immediate family. I am not one who has to rewrite history and even if I wanted to, the type of history I could write is limited, just like the majority of us humans hanging around on this planet. Therefore, with no megalomania running through my genes, I have found I like just being me. It is part of my quiet, meditative self.
However, distant relatives of mine are trying to drag me out of the dark. I suppose we all have family like that. Especially in times like these. They have taken my mantra to heart - "Have kids. Take care of your family." - and extended it to extreme bounds. Blood is thicker than water, and all that.
Thing is, they missed the full meaning of those two simple declarations. The logical statements go together, having kids and taking care of your family. 1 + 1 = 2. I don't have kids so my expression of that statement is 0 + 1/2(1) = 0.5. With no kids, family has only half as much influence on my taking care of family. There's a half-life time decaying factor involved that makes it less than 0.5 and relates to my lifeclock that says I only have 15,031 days left to live but we'll leave it out of the equation for now. Suffice it to say that some of the following is important:
N - Amount of element after time t.
No - Initial amount of the element.
t - decaying time.
L - ½ life time.
N = No(½)^(t/L)
N/No = (½)^(t/L)
Ln(N/No) = Ln(½)^(t/L)
Ln(N/No) = (t/L)
Ln(½)Ln(N/No) / Ln(½) = t / L
t = L [Ln(N/No) / Ln(½)]
As the saying goes, I'll leave it up to the reader to try to figure out what I'm trying to figure out what I'm trying to say mathematically.
The lesson I'm trying to learn...
Well, I watched a movie version of a novel, "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress." After watching the movie and hearing what my Scots-Irish relatives are facing in renewed violence on a island in the northern Atlantic Ocean, I have something to learn here.
I have mixed a big vat of stew in which I've thrown "1984," "Brazil," "Brave New World," "Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress," "Purple Rain," "Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables," "The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual," "Common Sense," "The Color Purple," "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," "Why Did I Get Married?," "Mad" magazine, "Angela's Ashes," "Joyeux Noël," "Brigadoon," facebook comments, and totally meaningless news headlines. And, of course, a special blend of herbs and spices...sigh...can't forget the commercial influence on my gastronomic tastes. I'm no gourmet so I'm going to coat everything in a capsaican sauce made from concentrated hot peppers grown in a hermetically-sealed hydroponic chamber hidden in a hall closet and drowned in some hoppy beer I fermented at home in my pantry.
Just a moment while I sample the flavorful concoction.
Cough, cough! Wow! Delicious so far.
While some people prefer to eat freshly-prepared meals, I like to wait a few weeks, months, or years before sitting down and savoring my secret recipe. By then, it's no longer breakfast, lunch or dinner. It's a potent potion.
Of course, my being human, and not especially unique, I know that I'm not the only one like myself, which means I can look at humans in other parts of the world and expect them to do the exact same thing I'm doing, either in concert or slightly syncopated chronologically.
As I've stated repeatedly, it's not all about me. Sometimes, it's about me' (pronounced "me prime"). Ad infinitum. And yes, ad nauseum, at times, too. Variations on a theme. But whose theme are we talking about here? ee cummings? Perhaps a little. Most definitely, absolutely, one that's out of Africa. Both now and in prehistoric past.
I am a human. That's what I learned to call myself. But that doesn't mean anything other than a word in a language that has spread globally (with tendrils reaching out beyond our solar system). Language defines me. Language doesn't define me.
Thus, when I take these two light-sensing organs that line up with the rest of my body and focus them on neatly-arranged words, whether on paper, on a movie screen, or on an electronic window like the one in front of me, I am both the single sample of a human being, with genetic ties back to the jungles, plains and savanna of an ancient continent, and part of the colony of primates which populate this planet, indistinguishable in my set of general traits from others.
So, to those distant relatives of mine, who want me to join them in a struggle to claim that a whole island belongs to them and not their near relatives, I ask you, who do you consider family? Your ancestors are dead. They don't need you to rekindle their lives. You don't know the thoughts that went through their heads, only the actions that they took to protect and defend their families. Their definition of family will always be different than yours. That is the whole point of studying history, so we more enlightened descendants can see that a human's set of learned behaviors gets larger with time, thus allowing every human to benefit from the lessons of the past, not repeat the same mistakes.
During this economically-induced depressive period in our lives, we fall prey to those who improve their family conditions by inducing others to reduce the conditions of someone else's family. Keep your eye out for those predators. The benefits they offer are temporary.
But you argue that there's no other game in town and it's the only one offering you food to put on your family's table? Then I'm calling you out right here in front of everyone and pointing out your short-sightedness. I might even call you too lazy to be responsible for your family. Yes, I know that "lazy" is a derogatory term but sometimes a word like that will jar you into serious action.
Use your brain. Think for yourself. You have all the skills you need to care for your family. Don't wait on someone else to tell you what to do. I'm looking at you and I don't see an army of ants battling against invading ants from a neighbouring colony. What I see is the result of hundreds of thousands of years of cooperation with fellow members of your species. If you still have the innate desire to hunt and kill when there are no more easy targets around, then be creative. Unless you were bred for cannibalism, there's no reason to attack and kill others of your kind. Go to a farm or an animal slaughterhouse and watch how food is prepared to be put on your table. Who knows but that you might even get a job there, helping you work out your aggressive killing attitude in a more modern environment.
There will always be a gap between what I say and what you hear and think I say. It's the gap between teaching and learning. Keep that gap in mind and learn to listen to yourself. In that gap is the definition of you, where your true uniqueness exists. It's where you'll figure out how to take care of your family without resorting to physical violence. Violence is part of our genetic toolset, inherent in our system of governing others. But YOU can put that toolset to positive use. Use pent-up anger to find strength and fortitude in you to start your own company, taking an idea that's sat in the back of your mind and making it useful for many people, some who might want to exchange money or barter for. Don't worry about making your ancestors proud. It's your family who wants to be impressed by you.
In other words, I can talk until I've run out of words, trying to teach, but in the end you still have to educate yourself.
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