I was working on how much it would take to master languages when I applied it to other subjects. What was missing is practice be it language or math or just about anything else. I traced it to eighth grade.
I was in the bathtub when I realized how I never really practiced emotional intelligence. Ashley and the nuns dominated how I handled it later. It couples with the tribulations of work. No practice, no chance, and no advance just mutually enforce each other.
Mu Prime has moved through abstract algebra during the past two years. It reminded me of R Bray back in 1976 who mentioned abstract algebra, but I have never explored it. The idea should be to plan, execute, and move on.
Nothing much else has happened with HM since I sent him a praise through LinkedIn. I wonder whether he’d read my article.
Today I put on “Terry” to watch it on the big screen for the first time. It occurred to me that there is a resemblance between Terry Fox and Peter Parker. It involves making the best of a situation. Each of us gets thrown into life and uncontrolled situations, and I’m reminded of the adage that we can control how we react to our situations.
We can related to how we’d react had we lost a leg to osteosarcoma, endured chemotherapy, thought we had beaten cancer, and seen children die from the disease. We may find our purpose in life to push research to save others.
Despite its fictional character, we can also relate had we accidentally gained superpowers and used them to be vigilantes. Tom Holland summed it in “Civil War” when his character told Tony Stark why he became Spiderman. “When you can do the things I can, and you don’t, then the bad things happen, it’s because of you.” We become inspired to find our higher purpose in life to overcome tragedies, obstacles, and disappointments. Terry kept going, running his best, until he could do no more. He still lost his life to cancer, but his foundation continues to win. Tom’s Spiderman lost his identity as Peter Parker, but he won by saving his universe. May each of us confront our existential choices with such courage and commitment that we did our best.
Over a decade ago, I encountered Ed Strachar’s “Into the Genius Zone” in which he asked to imagine ourselves in any time and place and describe it. I was running about thirty meters behind Terry Fox as he ran in Toronto on my birthday in 1980. I could feel the hot breeze on my skin in 30ยบ weather, hear the dull roar of the crowd, and feel the pavement on my feet. I would now meet the three Spidermans on the roof of the school, hug Tom Holland’s grieving Spiderman, and feel the empathy. I just need a reason to be there.
I came across a fact I should have figured around 1972. Besides the Harvest Moon, there is the opposite phenomenon in March during the Worm Moon. In that case, the moon rises twenty minutes more than fifityfive minutes later. Why I never thought of that possibility would be a mystery. Perhaps the lack of such a thought should have been a clue that I wasn’t doing everything correctly by memorizing everything.
