(This entry is written for my grandchildren and any subsequent descendants, should there by any, who might like to know how and where their brain anomalies originated. Whether they will revere or curse me for what I've bequeathed them, I'll never know. Just as well. The further they are removed from me, the less they have to worry, for I'm only a one-fourth donor to my grandchildren, only an eighth to the greats. With progressive diminishment they have less and less reason to be concerned. But they'll never arrive at zero --there's no escape from me or from a genetic Zeno's Paradox.]
I've lived with this brain for 80-plus years now and have a pretty good idea of its strengths and weaknesses and peculiarities. I'll try be candid about the poor pink mass.
I have a very good memory but little capacity for synthesis or organization. I imagine that the contents of my brain look like the last scene of Citizen Kane. A warehouse of stuff strewn in heaps, nothing organized, everything disorderly and random. A great twisted miscellany of jumbled information. Nothing where it should be, everything a mess. I "know" lots of facts and data, but I've never had the capacity to make sense of them. When I read, for example, a well-organized book of history, I'm regularly dazzled by authors who are able to discover and explain patterns of change or to compare one century or one civilization with another. My brain can't do such things -- or anything remotely similar, even at a much lower order of achievement .
I have almost no imagination or creativity. Over the year I've tried to write stories and poetry, but the stuff that emerges from my brain is piss poor. I'm only comfortable dealing with facts and evidence. When I'm asked to invent stuff, to make things up, I falter badly. I'm reminded that when I was a youth in college, many of my friends enrolled for courses in "Creative Writing." I couldn't take such a risk -- creative writing terrified me. I was conscious, even then, of my total want of invention or artistry. On the other hand, I'm quite a good detective. I can follow clues. I'm a good researcher. Strange to say, though I'm without imagination in real life, I experience spectacularly fanciful dreams. There's hardly a night goes by that I'm not transported to some vividly brilliant alternative world. Why can't I access my nighttime imagination during the waking hours? I could have been a pillar of neo-surrealism.
I'm good at arithmetic but a total bust at mathematics. I can do mental arithmetic much better than most -- add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and accurately without pen or paper. But once things become even the slightest bit abstract, I go blank. When there is something to count, I'm your man; when there's something to extrapolate or imagine, no go.
I have a strong aesthetic sense, especially about visual beauty. Museums or gardens can move me almost to a swoon. I've even experienced Stendhal syndrome a few times. Majestic mountains and spacious landscapes move me less than a well-designed garden. Yet my delight in human artistic achievement does not cross over into anything that might be called spirituality (as it does for many people). I entirely lack what Charlotte Bronte called the "organ of veneration."
I have a woeful disabling case of directional dyslexia -- worse than anyone I've ever known except my younger brother. I can't follow directions and I get lost even in familiar territory. I believe that my inability with left right east west (I'm brilliant with up and down!) has contributed to my general lack of daring. Inasmuch as I've always been afraid to go a step too far in space, I became too cautious to strike out intellectually. Perhaps my inability with directions is also tied up with my sometimes disabling shyness -- but that's a guess. I do know that it's the reason that I am regularly bested a jigsaw puzzles by five-year-olds -- I can't deduce the relationship between pieces.
I'm not prone to guilt but I'm devastated by shame. I suppose I would feel guilt if I killed or harmed someone, but I've never done much in the pure villainy line. Though largely guilt-free, I suffer dreadfully from embarrassment. I think that I've retained in my memory every foolish fatuous pretentious thing I've ever said or done. I live with a highly punishing shame superego -- which is good, because it limits the number of times in which I might make an egregious fool of myself, but it's bad because it's kept me from taking risks that might have been productive or liberating or just simply pleasurable.
I have a good sense of humor. I can occasionally be witty. I also appreciate the wit of others. I've learned, over the years, not to be witty at others' expense. I'm articulate and occasionally, but rarely, eloquent.
I'm observant. When I walk in the woods, or walk down the street, I see and interpret more clearly than most people. Sherlock said, "You see but you do not observe." I'm no Holmes, but I do observe. Perhaps it's false pride but I think that I "read" people pretty well. And I read relationships well. I'm curious about people and about things, which is why I am happier reading non-fiction rather than fiction. I'm more interested in the facts than in "make-believe." An odd admission for a person who spent a lifetime teaching and studying literature.
I'm a good listener.
I love music but I have as inadequate a sense of rhythm as anyone on earth. My dancing is pathetic and ludicrous. My sense of rhythm is so bad that as a youth I could never learn to pump a swing -- even though in bat and ball games I was a passable schoolyard athlete.
I'm impatient, easily bored. If I don't get it quickly, I'm liable to give up. But there have been times in my life when I worked with admirable perseverance and diligence. Not often enough.
I'm fascinated by language and know more than most people about the way languages are structured and how they work. I read foreign languages pretty well. At the same time, I have no ear for sound. My hearing is now very bad, except when I turn the apparatus up to 11, but even in my youth I didn't easily distinguish "t" from "d" or "v" from "b." I seem to have to see the word in my head before I can understand or translate it. I was good at the ancient languages because they made no demand on ear or tongue. French was a trial because the sounds were so distant from their spelling. In English, I'm an excellent speller.
At this point in my life I'm more conscious of the deficiencies of my brain than of its strengths. I feel fortunate that I had a strong memory, a feel for language, and a decent prose style, and that those few traits were enough to let me live a respectable life and make a decent living. But I also know that many people perform a multitude of tasks without strain that are a torment and a struggle for me. Which has kept me appropriately modest.
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