Half Way Around the World: November 2015

Friday, November 20, 2015

The power to learn

I'm always delighted to realize that I can learn, gain new insights, and see things from different perspectives ... but sometimes the time it takes is less heartening. Let me relate a recent example. Over the last week or so I have gradually become aware of a murky green item on the kitchen surface of my shared apartment. A few days ago I decided to inspect it and realized that it was in fact an oven mitt. This was a fortunate discovery, because we have not had oven gloves in our apartment for a few months and I have been using a tea towel to take things out of the oven. (I presumably have my housemates to thank for providing the opportunity for my discovery.) After a few more days of reflection, I today realized that there are indeed two mitts, although they are of the same colour and are not placed close together, making their simultaneous discovery more challenging. With one eye on future revelations, I have been considering if this particular accomplishment could have been achieved earlier. Fortunately, I think the conclusion is that it could have been. However, in defence of my previously unenlightened self, I remark that the similarity in colour between the oven gloves and our kitchen surface did rather subdue the separation of the two in my mind, thus presenting a significant obstacle which should not be under-estimated in the final analysis.