Of the roughly 200 books in this place, none are biology or chemistry. There should be more books but I move too often. Most everything here, including history and travel tales, are actually research material that has been read many times. I am re-reading “The Great Hunger”, the story of the Irish potato famine of 1846-1850 (last mentioned 2009/08/15). This time I understand the parts about the plant virus.When learning about this disaster, I cannot help but to see parallels between the callous attitude of the British and my own family, the resemblance is so instantly clear. Both have an outstanding ability to draw the wrong conclusions. Putting consideration and biology together, I must be a different species than all those people.
Consider instinctual behavior. In examples I’ve mentioned before, when I walk down an empty corridor, I will keep to one side in case somebody else has to pass, even though nobody is there. Or when home alone at night, I naturally will not make loud noises simply because it is night and one should be quiet. Or how I intuitively use my own resources rather than conniving when others to turn their backs. See, same genus, different species. (I'm saying humans that use their own resources are different than those that try to use the resources of others.)
Actually, I can think of dozens of counts that prove that point, you bet. Some of you probably think I’m joking. But take the shoemaker’s machine today. It is around twelve feet long and does a few simple things, like sanding and shining. However, one end of it has a series of cutting blades unlike anything else. It is used for finishing the heels on women’s spiked shoes, and it quit working y’day. Shortly it turns out that in all the years, it had never been adjusted since nobody knew how. For probably more than 30 years, nobody fine tuned the thing.
Enter the old electric brain. Remember, it ain't braggin' if you really done it. I did. Without looking at the machine nor understanding how it worked, I was able to solve this problem in around twenty minutes. (Did you get that? I did not even look at the machine.) Alfredo got a first-class demonstration of what deep thinking looks like. Since that critical piece of machinery could have put him out of business, he will never again confuse me thinking with a person just sitting there, as is wont to happen when people watch me think. There is nothing else much like this machine, yet I was able to walk up to it, remove a cover that nobody knew was there (“this piece has to come off”) and expose a complicated series of setting dials. It took five minutes to convince him it must be a removable cover.
Looking much like a complicated cappuccino machine inside, he was shocked to see me select the correct spring-loaded thumbscrew out of the maze and double-shocked that I knew is must have a left-hand thread. I’ll take credit where it is due and on a scale of one to ten, this problem was probably around a two hundred and fifty. Yet, you know I cannot solve those logic games, the ones with clues like Mr. Jones was not the cousin of the lady in the blue dress. Really, I can't do those puzzles.
But, compared to my family, I’m a regular Albert Frankenstien. I could charge admission to watch them try to fix something. They'll bust it worse. They'll also try to "fix" anything of yours that probably does not need fixing. If they break it, they'll put the hatch back on and deny everything. If, by chance, they do fix it, they'll want money when you get home. All this without being asked and without the benefit of a good basic education.
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