"Goal, Frank-incentives, and Mirth!"

By Johnny D. Symon

I wrote a belated response to a good old English friend recently. It was a simple shootin' the breeze type of letter in which I included my personal thoughts on something I saw on TV. Some Japanese goofballs have been training monkeys to "understand" the numbers one through ten on a computer screen. If they press each button in the right order they receive a snack, so it therefore ain't so surprising that the experiment has proven to be a success. I watched one little furry monster exercising his limited numeric skills one hundred percent of the time. The boffins behind this nonsense experiment deduced that through this act monkeys were at least as intelligent as human beings.

But you know something? their enthusiasm was ill-founded because if it only takes someone to learn one through ten in the right order, then humans are proving that they're at least as intelligent as monkeys, but if one or more of those humans can also perform mental arithmetic, or solve mathematical problems, but the monkeys can't, then the whole scientific experiment is a failure. Furthermore, if some of those humans could also learn and speak other languages, and the monkeys couldn't, the situation those Japanese white coats face is grimmer still. As I watched this experiment I tried to imagine those monkeys speaking Japanese to their inferior human counterparts, though somehow this mind picture could not form between my ears. Instead something else formed, that in my view lies in direct relation to the monkey experiment; "Brain Training" for humans. This idea is yet another harebrained Japanese ploy at trying to make humans perform like monkeys.

"People who get stuff done get put down
by people who don't."
— Henry Rollins

Brain Training is a couch potato's method of trying to perform cerebral dynamics. The method's okay in its proper context, i.e. helping Mr or Mrs Chocolate Teapot to recover themselves after their hard disc had crashed, or indeed helping brain-damaged crash victims recover their lost faculties, for those faculties are most precious therefore any help to aid recovery is welcome. But there are faculties that we need to lose and never recover, some of them are behind Brain Training, and others who waste precious breathing space trying to prove that monkeys are smarter than we are. That experiment by the way simply proves that their monkeys are indeed smarter than they are ... but they ain't smarter than the rest of us, right?

Brain Training in the true sense, is to recognize the roof needs fixin' and without any skills in this profession you switch off the TV, get up off the couch, buy the materials, then do it yourself. You learn how to fix that faucet or change locks, even repair 'em. You make your own clothes, bake your own cakes, and fix the automobile. That's Brain Training in the true sense. Further Education is Brain Training, so long as it involves future work plans, practical things, solid goals. For those of you who know the Bible, let's direct our thoughts to the account of the building of the tabernacle.

"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the
knowledge of the holy is understanding."
— Proverbs 9:10

The Brain Training afforded the craftsmen came by way of something called "wisdom," what they didn't know, wisdom would provide. And it still is the case today ... where there's a will there's a way, and where there's no will there's "no way!"

"People can be divided into two classes:
those who go ahead and do something,
and those who sit still and enquire,
'why wasn't it done the other way?'"
— Oliver Wendell Holmes

Those who perform the tickety-tick-chopstick type of thing on their Brain Trainers form part of the "why wasn't it done the other way?" crowd. They claim to be exercising their brain, yet nothing ever reaches the physical world. I wonder why? Well the answer's simple; they're born-again losers, bereft of the creative spark that the rest of us eagerly seek. Some of them spend time pondering on the ins and outs of a tree falling in a lonely wood, and they talk about it to their friends. "Does that tree make a sound?" to which the other no doubt replies by saying, "I was in a lonely wood just last week. There I was lying down with my back against a tree, playing with my Brain Trainer, when I heard a crack and a rasping sound and saw a tree barely ten feet off crash to the ground. And I got to thinking to myself that I sure was lucky to be lying against this tree and not that one, otherwise my brain and it's trainer might have been crushed out of existence! And yes, it sure did make a sound though."

We're all aware that any tree, irrespective of the existence within earshot of human beings, will make a sound, but that sound will mean different things to different people. If it fell due to the efforts of a woodsman and his axe, the sound will simply mean that it's time to take a break and catch his breath before starting on the next trunk. But if someone sees and hears a tree fall who happens to be a luthier or a carpenter, that sound will be a different story, a different cerebral experience. They'll picture that tree in another form, the luthier will see a violin or a guitar ten years on once the wood's seasoned, and the carpenter will realize his vision much sooner of a table, chair or door. But these people are of different stock. They learn their craft and exercise their brain with one goal in mind; physical products from the work of their own hands, things that benefit humankind. Therefore they all bear the same "registered trait-mark!"

On the other hand Brain Training, Eye Training, etc., are peculiar methods with no end goal in mind for the healthy user, they're products of the Far Eastern mind that depends on the "learning by rote" process, a teaching method that's a prime mover behind the reason why Japan has one of the highest child suicide rates in the world. Education is the most important factor in a child's life, yet if education does not provide vision it's simply a cold and confusing regiment for a child to undergo. Kids are high energy, eager to learn and explore entities, what they require is a strong and meaningful direction, then all you'll see is dust. Hands-on practical experience with a parent or parents where they're presented with everyday problems then beckoned on to help solve them is a good start.

Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer as he's known on his TV shows, often talks about the similarities between kids and dogs. He says that dogs experience the energy of their master, and if that master does not assume the status of pack leader, his dog will become emotionally unstable. And kids can be in the same predicament should their parents not live up to their own parental responsibilities. Education therefore begins at home.

I challenge others through discussing numerous and wide-ranging subjects, then sit back to hear their view. Sometimes I'm surprised at the understanding of young people and shocked at the shallow thinking of grown adults. I heard recently of a survey in Mexico. Part of it's findings included the claim that "on average a Mexican male lies five times a day." My first question was, if I asked a Mexican dude if this was true would I partly be responsible for making him lie a sixth time? But the second question I asked myself was, how did this group gather together those facts? How did they know that Mexicans lie five times a day? You see, if I asked a Mexican if he was a liar, would he tell the truth? and if I followed him around all day how could I know when he was telling lies or truths? If he claimed to pay all his taxes, then careful investigation could determine the truth on that. But if he's one for taking others on a trip down memory lane, his recollections would be nigh on impossible to verify.

I have an English friend, and this friend is a friend of an English recluse. This boy found himself divorced then shut himself up. Hardly anyone sees him year in year out. Every once in a while when I'm preparing to drive down to the coast I find a little note on the windshield that wasn't there five minutes previously with, "Four bags of muesli please," or "I need some live bread yeast." I told my English friend recently that our recluse should buy the yeast from a downtown baker, the family are friends of mine, so he'll get it for a good price. Next day my friend drove him down to the bakery and sure enough they obliged. Apparently our very own Howard Hughes loved the stuff and the price too, he therefore dispatched my friend on a yeast run regularly from then on.

Then a few weeks back he requested a full sack of flour. Off she flew and ordered the due amount. She watched as the baker weighed it on the scales, then he charged her 20 bucks. When she delivered the stuff, old Hughes was devastated by the price. Later on he told her that the baker had under-weighed and he'd been ripped off. When I heard the story I asked my friend why she hadn't first enquired of the price before ordering, then I asked what kind of scales our recluse used, were they reliable? Well, being a recluse, shadow-man does not permit man nor beast entry into his home, so she didn't know how reliable his scales were, or even if he had any, because he's poor.

Basically I'm relating this event because it caused my friend to doubt my word on the honesty of my Spanish baker friends. Their honesty by the way is known far and wide, as is their generosity, and on the subject of flour and other basic food items, I had spoken about this previously to my friend, due to the recent price hikes: Do not buy flour from a regular bakery, because they're the hardest hit, whereas large supermarket chains treat flour as a loss-leader knowing that the buyer is most likely to buy eggs, milk, sugar, dried fruit, etc.

You see situations such as that outlined above should never occur if people observe the usual norms surrounding buying and selling. Most sensible folks would not consider buying something without first knowing the price, and my friend did not even question our recluse and his claims over the weight of the product, which led I suppose to that old adage, "familiarity breeds contempt," or maybe it's just "stupidity breeds contempt." Either way, all of the above I view to be crimes against my sanity because I don't live and work like that; everything must be cut and dried. I never leave room for misunderstandings, and that's how kids should be taught ... how to buy and sell, how to make ends meet, and how to live life as a superior human being, one who thinks and acts progressively with a strong goal in mind.

So since this is the holiday season it's time to think about gifts, but let's think not only of the act of giving, but of what to give. Let's forget brain training and most of us can forget about the notion of giving gold, frankincense and myrrh too, we're talking big money here, but how about giving our kids something similar yet more valuable, let's offer wisdom, "Goal, Frank-incentives, and Mirth!"

© Johnny D. Symon