Learning

When was the last time you saw a dead cat? The last one I saw I'd dragged out from underneath our house where it had crawled to die. Did curiosity kill it? If it did, then it means that cats ask questions. I believe they must, though many are not around long enough to get answers, and those that are say nothing. They need their nine lives and then some, as they inspect the tyre-tread of articulated trucks, inch along slender branches for a morsel of meat mixed with feathers and bones, slip into bed beside their roly-poly caregiver, or steal just the one biscuit of the Rottweiler newly installed next door.

Curiosity has led us humans to ask questions from the very beginning. It probably began when neurones inside the brain formed the question, “Hello! What's this nice soft thing just in front of my mouth?” Then the next thought, “Oh goody! There's another one on this side.” You know what the neurones came up with next? Yes. “I wonder what they taste like?” And egged on by warm fuzzies, lips found nipple, tongue tasted, throat swallowed and tummy warmed. Experience aided momentum. “I wonder what they're called?” probably came next, followed by, “And who do they belong to?”

Now comes the first twist in the convoluted story of us humans. The tiny face crumples into a scowl. Fists clench. Gums gnash. Little legs kick as thoughts form: I saw them first. They're mine now. Just let anybody try to take them away. I'll howl the house down and mess things up both front and back.
(This was long before silicon appeared on the scene. It became serious then, making it difficult for junior to sort the true from the false. The scar must have been a give away.)

By this time the neurones had set themselves on a course of question followed by decision that would last a lifetime. Experts vary as to just when our teenage scream-age begins. No one is certain when a male first thought, I wonder what she looks like when she removes...? Those thoughts have a built in repeater and can operate at any time and place. I'm assured these also occur in the female of our species too. Fair enough. I have it on good authority that questioning began with them: “Would you like an apple? Yes! Lovely, isn't it!”

There's a price to pay, of course. No gain without pain. A teacher once said to me, “You wouldn't put you finger into the fire just because you saw your friend doing it, would you?” I agreed with her then, but I was a fool. I may not have put my finger in a fire but I did test that the paint was wet, I used that word in front of Dad too, just the once, and later on, mixed my drinks as well. I've lived and learned since then.

For all of that, curiosity has led humans along the exciting path of exploration fed by what I call 'starters', something to arouse the curiosity. Some are visible, some are not. We're in the realm of the concrete and abstract now. We sail in vessels of steel; fly in heavier than air machines and even travel in a bullet train (a bit of a boast but fast anyway). Stonehenge is visible to man, as are the pyramids and other great monuments along with the scars of man's folly. Wales has its slag heaps, Russia it's Chernobyl; Hiroshima its Dome.

Time and circumstance sometimes have to merge before other things can be learned or seen. A few years ago I came across photographs of the earth's surface showing clear evidence of its disturbance both by man and nature. Someone's tracks across a field. The outline of where a building had once stood. Signs that a river had previously run that way, and so on.

A friend of mine, a teacher, was over-worked and seldom received recognition. Better trained teachers were given better pupils. He was given difficult pupils with learning and behaviour problems. My friend didn't, couldn't complain. He needed the job, had a family to support, a mortgage to pay and he did like teaching. The scars of the pupils were obvious but there were too many to receive the attention they needed. Eventually, my friend had a heart-attack. The few days he spent in hospital he learned that his heart showed evidence of scarring. You've been under strain for some time, he was told. It shows. Of course he'd been aware of the tension and strain but unaware of his scars. They were invisible. Not even those closest to him knew.

It's probably the same for many we pass in the street, work alongside, play sport with or know as our friends. They'll have scars and those who have experienced such things themselves will understand. It almost seems to be part of our learning. Shakespeare wrote: He jests at scars that never felt a wound, then followed it with: But soft! what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the sun. An interesting contrast, wouldn't you say?

Dennis Crompton © 1998
(first published www.denniscrompton.wordpress.com 2013)