How I Learned What I Know
Ah... LiveJournal.
I suppose I'll post. Here's one of my earlier memories.
How I Learned What I Know... without being taught.
1. Materialism.
When I was much younger, growing up in Albequerque New Mexico, my family loved tea. They still do I suppose. I mean, tea isn't one of those things you can just start hating one day. I suppose I can understand someone STARTING to like it all of the sudden, but not hating it. That's beside the point though. Growing up, we always had several types of drinks available: Caffiene-free Pepsi (bad tasting water), Kool-Aide (grape-a-saurus rex!), and tea. And when we made tea we made them in these large pitchers.
Now, it's funny because I don't see these things around too much anymore. They were a large glass cylinder with a tap at the bottom and a screw on lid. I feel like they used to be much more popular back in the late Eighties to early Nineties. I find though that when you are remembering your childhood, facts like "how popular a type of pitcher is" are very skewed. For all I know, nobody else used these things.
Now, we didn't just buy tea and put it in these pitchers. We made it (usually by boiling water, making the tea, then cutting it with water and adding sweet sweet sugar) and then kept it within our fridge until it ran out. Because it was somewhat of a hassle to make there were periods when we would keep the empty pitchers in the kitchen pantry. Now, I was at a very young age, young enough to want to climb things such as the pantry shelves. Early one morning, while climbing up to get something (before my parents were awake) I knocked over the empty pitcher which fell about three feet and smashed into pieces on the floor.
For one reason or another nobody else was awake or was woken by the sound of the glass shattering, and I remember being in awe of my destruction. My first reaction of course was to cry. And as I cried I slowly picked up all the shards of glass and started putting them into the shattered husk that was left of the pitcher. All I could think of was how we weren't going to be able to drink tea any longer! Our pitcher was broken!
If you can imagine a small child beating himself up over a mistake and crying his eyes out about it then I'm sure you can imagine that this was not a quick process. And it was the first time I can remember of actually continually going over an event in my mind and kicking myself over it. I don't know what my plan was... what I intended to do with the glass when it was all collected within what was left of the pitcher, but my parents woke up before I was done. I remember them being disappointed, but the big thing I learned was that it was just a pitcher. Just like all materialistic things it is temporary and unimportant. We can buy another one but I was safe and that's all that mattered to them.
I remember feeling guilty about it for a long time after that, and obviously it was traumatic enough for me to remember it to this day. Looking back, it's not a big deal... little kids break things all the time. But this was the first time that I broke something and felt personal loss, no matter how misplaced, on the object. I'm sure it has made me a more careful adult.
I suppose I'll post. Here's one of my earlier memories.
How I Learned What I Know... without being taught.
1. Materialism.
When I was much younger, growing up in Albequerque New Mexico, my family loved tea. They still do I suppose. I mean, tea isn't one of those things you can just start hating one day. I suppose I can understand someone STARTING to like it all of the sudden, but not hating it. That's beside the point though. Growing up, we always had several types of drinks available: Caffiene-free Pepsi (bad tasting water), Kool-Aide (grape-a-saurus rex!), and tea. And when we made tea we made them in these large pitchers.
Now, it's funny because I don't see these things around too much anymore. They were a large glass cylinder with a tap at the bottom and a screw on lid. I feel like they used to be much more popular back in the late Eighties to early Nineties. I find though that when you are remembering your childhood, facts like "how popular a type of pitcher is" are very skewed. For all I know, nobody else used these things.
Now, we didn't just buy tea and put it in these pitchers. We made it (usually by boiling water, making the tea, then cutting it with water and adding sweet sweet sugar) and then kept it within our fridge until it ran out. Because it was somewhat of a hassle to make there were periods when we would keep the empty pitchers in the kitchen pantry. Now, I was at a very young age, young enough to want to climb things such as the pantry shelves. Early one morning, while climbing up to get something (before my parents were awake) I knocked over the empty pitcher which fell about three feet and smashed into pieces on the floor.
For one reason or another nobody else was awake or was woken by the sound of the glass shattering, and I remember being in awe of my destruction. My first reaction of course was to cry. And as I cried I slowly picked up all the shards of glass and started putting them into the shattered husk that was left of the pitcher. All I could think of was how we weren't going to be able to drink tea any longer! Our pitcher was broken!
If you can imagine a small child beating himself up over a mistake and crying his eyes out about it then I'm sure you can imagine that this was not a quick process. And it was the first time I can remember of actually continually going over an event in my mind and kicking myself over it. I don't know what my plan was... what I intended to do with the glass when it was all collected within what was left of the pitcher, but my parents woke up before I was done. I remember them being disappointed, but the big thing I learned was that it was just a pitcher. Just like all materialistic things it is temporary and unimportant. We can buy another one but I was safe and that's all that mattered to them.
I remember feeling guilty about it for a long time after that, and obviously it was traumatic enough for me to remember it to this day. Looking back, it's not a big deal... little kids break things all the time. But this was the first time that I broke something and felt personal loss, no matter how misplaced, on the object. I'm sure it has made me a more careful adult.