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ever dumbening
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i'm trying, yet again, to conquer a new task. this time it's web design. a friend is helping me learn flash (among other things). it's interesting to observe how i'm reacting to the process. as i've been learning to surf (over the past 15 months) and before that when i was learning portuguese, i wasn't really transported to the discomforting feelings i associate with my undergrad days. but as i sit here cranking through these tutorials, i'm reminded.
i'm reminded of taking fortran as a freshman engineering student. i remember being bored mostly. i pretty much stopped going to class, stopped doing the homework. i think i got a "D." i'm sure if i applied myself that even when the class got trickier it would've been a relatively easy "A."
what i'm noticing now is that i need some type of mental flywheel or gyroscope. the materials are so varied in their simplicity and complexity. changing speeds is quite disorienting.
i once injured my hand in a science museum in germany because of varying speeds. the exhibit was a wheel with a handle for cranking. it was showing what friction does. it started out easy to turn, the example being a hard wheel on a hard surface. the last stage was supposed to represent a train wheel rolling on sand, obviously hard to turn for a seven-year-old. but then it reset back to the beginning, sending all my force against a path of no resistance. i slipped, falling forward, jamming my finger in the wheel. ouch.
so i need to (and needed to all those years ago) find a way to temper the changes. a way to gracefully flow through the boredom of ease, and a way to be patient when it gets bogged down in tricky material (or if the teacher/tutorial is less than wonderful). a flywheel of the mind.
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