For some people advice like this may seem ridiculously obvious. The reality is that for some people it isn’t. When I was young I used to get extremely frustrated with other children because I thought they were always being obtuse, or acting stupid, to annoy me. Eventually my mother sat me down and explained that they weren’t trying to be stupid, they were just incapable of understanding things as fast as I was. It wasn’t malice, it was a difference in ability. Recently the subject of the inner monologue and other similar concepts have come to the fore, which are all examples of the various ways human brains adapt to life. I hear my thoughts as a clear running monologue almost all the time. Sometimes I can silence it now that I’m older, but most of my thinking takes place in this kind of verbal framework that I hear in my mind’s ear. I also can clearly visualize things as imaged projected in my mind space. It’s very clear when I close my eyes, but I can also hold images in a sort of otherspace while having my eyes open. Generally the visual space hovers in front of and above my eyeline, but as the situation requires it can move around all the space around my body so it doesn’t interfere with what I’m doing. My memories tend to be third person, especially when I was younger. Now that I’m older some of my memories have switched to first person. My oldest memories were always in first person but the middle years tended to be third. I have very strong spacial memory. If I walk through a store one time, and my mind isn’t distracted or hindered by something, I can recall the location of at least 75% of what I’ve seen. A useful skill for working in a video store, or retail. Even now I can remember the last 5 or 6 layouts of my old jobs even though I have functionally no need of that information.
It’s strange to me trying to understand how other people navigate life without these tools I simply came with. I can’t teach someone how to have an internal monologue. I can barely even conceive of a life where you simply do things without thinking. I can react instinctively as situations require, but it’s not my default setting and the idea that it is for some people astounds me. I also understand what it’s like not to understand things, but there’s a point at which I have trouble understanding how someone lives with an extremely hindered intellect.
For Reggie and Thomas this is a situation where it may simply be impossible to convey this lesson. Reggie’s plans tend to be extremely vague in the long term and extremely reactionary in the short term, which is why he is accident prone. His mind is basically always ahead of itself and catching up with what he’s doing all the time. When given a framework to exist within he’s very competent though. He may have the potential to break out of his current paradigm, but he’ll need to adjust his methods for interacting with the world.

Anyway I guess we’ll see how this plays out over time. For now I wish you a pleasant Wednesday and hope to see you on Friday. Until then, Oooo-oooo-Oooo!

Posts authored by Jackie

2811 Half Speed.