I've come to realize that I have some huge gaps in my education. I know some of it is my recall is broken because I'm so tired (really I don't mean to be, but I'm not getting much time to rest these days). So when I'm trying to answer questions about Van Gogh in my head in French and I'm not getting any answers right it's frustrating because I love Van Gogh and I've studied him a bit... but I realize for all the art history I took when I was studying to be a visual art student, I don't know ANYTHING about art.
I also don't know much about history, business, science. I'm starting to feel like a complete fake! I'm supposed to be smart right?
I realize we all have our talents. Some people have excellent recall for exact quotations, summaries, styles, data, etc. They memorize them and retain them. I guess my talent is that I remember what I'm supposed to recall. I've also got an okay memory for where I found the information so it's like I've got an internet search engine in my head: "visit this site for more information on the topic you chose!" (Encyclopedia Hannica?) I have this general concept I want to pursue but I always have to go back and check and re-check what I need in order to use it, and then it seems promptly forget it!
I'm an analyzer & do-er. I can break stuff down, figure out where people are coming from, listen and get them to talk. I can usually even make them happy or more at peace. I can totally go to task. I'm sure that's useful but it's darn frustrating that I don't get what I think I need from my own mind! I'm tired of having gaps in my education, I want them filled in now! I want to remember all that stuff I was already supposed to have learned, darn it!
Maybe in an attempt to understand the process of brain development from someone who's never studied it; I've made my own assumptions as to why I'm in this phase:
As young children we learn basic concepts quickly, (or quickly in terms of what adults expect of themselves). As we grow older we continue to learn at a pretty radical pace until middle school and high school when those hormones start wrecking our brains. There's like a stall period there. Few students care about learning, or care for it superficially. My 'don't care' period lasted a little longer or at least took a different direction as I decided experience trumped books. But for everyone else we move into college where we start to care about our educations and futures a bit more. We take life and learning seriously until we have children and lose our minds again (going back to hormones and tired, right?).
Now from here it's totally speculative. My parents; friends and family my parents age DO stuff. They learn in a different way, going back to old educational loves and applying experience to higher levels. It's like that floating knowledge makes itself a part of their being (even if, well... they don't always remember everything). So life is just about different levels of learning and being. Maybe we have to absorb what we know like sponges before we can make room for more. Maybe we just have to get wacky hormones (puberty, bi products of lack of sleep, 'adult changes') out of our system before we have enough sense to recall what we wanted to?!
But either way, it doesn't matter... I'm still:
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