David Victor Photography

You must unlearn almost everything you were taught in school about what it means to be intelligent. In school especially in the elementary years, pupils have to deal primarily with peer pressure aside from handling the purely academic. With eBooks, Google, caregivers and/or significant others who can assist if not entirely complete the homework ”intelligence” takes on a non-traditional meaning.

In the first world countries and recently even in a few local schools in the Philippines the phenomenon called “bullying” requires the young in school to harness a new kind of intelligence neither bookish nor utterly compliant. On-line games have honed a more practical often times creative intelligence. Many very young children have not been socialized in traditional schools yet but already have experienced the world through computer games. Certainly these have a new kind of style for negotiating the world so unlike the fear-based rules and regulations they would otherwise be subjected to through their caregivers or even their busy parents. The adjustments needed are hardly perceived by most adults. not very doable is a change in focus. I refer to the soft focus something similar to what can be attained through meditation! Who would be interested in this frenetic world to introduce meditation in school or at home for children? This soft focus consists of not trying too hard, contrary to the traditional teaching. It calls for the mind to think. To trust that the mind will eventually settle on what it was instructed to do. This soft focus can work even under time-bound deadlines. The trick I have personally learned is to trust that a relaxed mind can accomplish more when not harassed, when treated gently. Much time is wasted forcing the mind to accomplish one’s goals.     I am a product of rote memory education. My generation more than survived with memorization. But the world has become too complex for one to enjoy all the progress going on. The artificial and forced concentration used in rote memory often called “Sharp Focus” has been rendered ineffective and inefficient for daily life. There was a program for students during my early years of teaching for boosting their memory skills. It was surely an additional expense to parents but several parents enrolled their children just the same. I don’t remember any research evaluating the results of said program.

With memory work, it is as though the mind dedicates all its possible bytes to remembering data leaving no space for intuition to develop insights. Not surprisingly the mind requires a repetition of errors if only to learn from them. Problems recur when lessons are not learned.

The “Sharp Focus” I myself grew up with can no longer support me. It has limited me to say the least. It has narrowed my attention field. It has often led me into paralysis. It is as though I’m left only with either the fight or flight responses I have resorted to all these years. I have been relying tremendously on memory but in the ever changing world with daily intricacies to handle, I’m no match. I go to whatever is stored and filed in my memory but very often the file doesn’t have anything to match my present need.

Procedures like fishing out my cell phone from my bag, opening and closing my email from different computers even operating ATMs of different banks, applying for visas etc. These have become stressful. I strongly disagree that my difficulty is due to the fact that I am a senior citizen.

Believe it or not, I couldn’t access my Yahoo mail In London. As soon as I came home to the Philippines, my password was readily accepted. Apparently, Yahoo had reconfigured its design at the time I was in London from August to September 2011. Back in the Philippines I had to fill up forms again to activate my Yahoo account.

I suspect there is a need for me to go to another level. I suspect there is a similarity between my dilemma and that of bullies. My theory is that bullies live in a fear-based world. For their survival they are in an eternal fighting mode. Their energies are consumed by their need to defend themselves. Their tired brains stuck into the “Sharp Focus” of forced concentration do not allow them to think normally. I believe their theme song is “Me Against the World”.

David Victor Photography

My focus has been very verbal rendering my left hemisphere overworked. The trick is for me to develop both hemispheres so I can benefit from both verbal and nonverbal thinking. I am still learning the Apache technique for putting my mind in silence. This exercise included in Martha Beck’s “Finding Your Way in a Wild World” makes me enjoy housework by making it meaningful. It consists of feeling your heartbeat and over-all pulse while doing tasks. It certainly requires mindfulness.

Clearly the tired brain needs to be relaxed. The ideal will be to allow the brain to feel some semblance of security; the brain needs to develop new ruts other than those pathways created by painful and fearful memories. As an extreme suggestion, I think the tired brains can use some relaxing massages, or short visits to the park where the plants and the flowers can stimulate the senses to fresh ideas not the computer generated ones. The rejuvenated mind can eventually return to computer games and the likes with a healthy attitude towards life.

Recently, life taught me to distinguish between the scientific way of questioning continually and searching for objective answers on one hand and getting stuck in the past by continually dwelling on events that should have been forgotten. For example, I should have forgotten the many difficulties I encountered in the long process of acquiring our present condo and the tedious work entailed in moving in. I should instead have focused on the sorting out especially of documents that would be needed for life to go on at our new address. I refer to bank documents establishing our new mailing address. I also refer to information needed by  international organizations and old friends from abroad. Gratefully we don’t need to update embassies since we don’t have pending visas as yet.