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How Can You Not Know This?
I have a peculiar area of expertise: I know a lot about death. Well, more precisely, I know more than the average person about bereavement, especially sudden, violent bereavement. I have come by this through my own losses, dedicated study, and, especially, through nearly 15 years of experience as a law enforcement chaplain. Law enforcement officers often have the sad duty of performing what is known as “death notification,” and it is one they gladly hand off to the chaplain whenever possible. It is one of the subjects I teach at our academy.
A few years ago, I began to receive invitations from members of the medical profession who wished to learn more about death notification. The first time the state’s chapter of the American Academy of Surgeons asked me to address their meeting, I was puzzled. After all, these were doctors: highly educated professionals that must regularly (if reluctantly) come face-to-face with death. “Don’t you know more about this than I do?” I asked.
Apparently not. So I went and spoke about the very early stages of bereavement: the first seconds, minutes, hours after news of a loved one’s decease has been transmitted. And as the assembled surgeons nodded, took notes, and intelligently asked what seemed to me pretty basic questions, I kept thinking how can you not know this?
We know what we know. And once our knowledge has been integrated into our mental processes, it becomes difficult to return to the time when we didn’t know it. Once you’ve learned to read, for example, you can’t not read a passing road sign, a phenomenon that has inspired some truly idiotic educational theories.
And when you encounter someone who seems like a reasonably intelligent, educated person who has no grasp whatever of information that seems essential for living a normal life, let alone having or voicing a political opinion, it just seems bizarre. How can you not know this?
I gave two Ricochetti that disorienting feeling the other day, when I posted my (passionate) opinion on healthcare reform. My new friends, with whom I had happily conversed on other issues, found themselves having to kindly explain how insurance works…in terms a third-grader might understand. Though I couldn’t see their faces, I’m quite sure they were staring at their computer screens thinking: How can she not know this?
One of my correspondents wrote: “Kate, I am giving you the benefit of the doubt that you just spend your time with people who don’t think like [other Ricochetti] and I do, because you are obviously quite intelligent enough to have already understood our viewpoint.”
I’m sure that if we were having the conversation in person, her voice would have in it the same despair with which my dear husband inquires how it is that I can have lived in our house for 10 years and not know where the furnace is?!
So okay, Ricochetti: What areas of ignorance encountered in others (here or elsewhere) cause you that heart-sinking dismay? And what blank spots on your own mental map would you confess to?
Published in General
I can give you a studying suggestion, FWIW. Don’t make it a passive activity — read/review, etc. Make it active — create a written outline of the course materials. Something about the process of having think through the materials hard enough to be able to write down a summary of them seems, for me at least, to be a very powerful tool to learning them.
I took to reading and writing like a “duck to water” when I was around 4 (“Little Katie is so smart!”) When it came time to learn other useful skills, like adding and subtracting, or telling time, the fact that it took effort threw me. (“Little Katie is so stupid!” ) I think people who come into the world a little lopsided, natural-talent-wise, tend to get more lopsided as we go along, because we avoid the subjects that make us feel stupid and double down on the ones that let us feel clever and special…and so we get stupider…sigh.
My first husband used to say he wasn’t naturally good at anything, but—perhaps because of this— he could just decide he wanted to learn something and learn it. He ended up able to excel at all kinds of things (including writing!) while I pretty much remain a one-trick pony (duck?)
Some posters have commented on being directionally or at least transportationally challenged — this reminds me of a rather acute difference between my husband and myself. I seem to have a built-in compass, and can usually tell what direction we’re going in and how to navigate to where we want to go. If I have been to a location or specific address just once, I can usually get there again, even years afterwards. My visual memory is very good. My husband, on the other hand, still can’t recall where the turnoff onto the gravel road is when going to my parents’ farm despite having traveled there for over THIRTY YEARS. Ditto for other locations that we have been going to for decades. Now those are “how can you not know this???!!” moments!
I used to have the same ability you have, but the navigator in my phone has turned my brain into mush.
*looks out of the window at Portland*
*looks down at Birkenstock clad feet*
*looks slightly to the left of the screen at the remains of a vegan breakfast*
*contemplates claims about the hipster/ lesbian style of glasses and jeans with suspenders currently being worn and coarse canvas jacket about to be worn*
*contemplates gender of spouse*
Dangit. If one and only one of us is lesbian, it’s not Cato. As such, I feel it’s important that we all recognize that Cato is not a lesbian or, just as importantly, close to being one.
In my defense, I’m “vegan” only to the extent of the ancient Lenten fasting regulations, so the leather isn’t an ethical lapse. If there’s another reason for hating us, though, it’s probably a fair cop.
In terms of ignorance: I’m learning to drive right now (at 37 years old), and all the weapons I own are melee weapons. I’m not good on sports and I’m uncomfortable being placed in positions of responsibility at barbecues. My knowledge of traditional country is patchy, and I’ve always struggled with cigars (I guess that last might seem like non-lesbian credit, but I feel like I lose that credit by continuing to try). I’m a terrible example of an American man.
I really like theoretical physics when I can understand it, but this Sunday’s European Audio Meetup was way too challenging for me.
In terms of the ignorance of others, I wish that people understood that conservatives win victories, that the government doesn’t spend a larger portion of GDP than it did a third of a century back, that abortion, gun rights, education, and many other issues are going our way and have been for a long time. The belief that we always lose when we play the game right contributes strongly to the desire not to play or to flip the table, and it’s so obviously confused.
I was about to add it to my audible list when I saw that there are three books by the same author. Kate, as someone who isn’t particularly struggling with death on a personal scale, it seems like Marriage might be a better fit than Here (also, marriage is an academic interest of mine that I ought to be thinking about a little more right now). Does it read better if you read Here first, or are they standalones? Do you have a recommendation?
I hear you, James. As someone who has zero interest in sports, hunting, fishing, or whiskey I consider myself to be a very poor example of Minnesota Manhood. Fortunately cigars aren’t a big thing around here, because I hate those, too.
Are you planning on learning to drive a manual transmission? A lot of new drivers don’t know how, but in the right type of car they are much more fun than an automatic.
My Subaru (the one I murdered then resurrected at great expense) is a manual—one reason I didn’t just start again with a new car. They can be hard to find.
I learned (waay back in the day, and never got round to taking my test; the idiocies of youth) on a stick, and found the shift to automatic to be very pleasant indeed. I regularly hope and pray that Google’s move to genuinely fully automatic comes soon; there are very few non-marital tasks that I would not like to see automated. One of the things I love about America is the high quality of frozen meals, Audible allows me to pay people to read books for me, I greatly prefer ski routes that avoid cross country trekking in favor of consistent lift use, I jog most happily in a gym, and my phone reminds me when I need to send gifts to Catherine.
I can’t wait for the automatic car! Think of all the knitting I could get done?
Hey, wait—I’ll get to read to you, if you get HIYNM as an audiobook! How cool is that?