Spilling the beads

Beans you mean! No, I do not. Remember those little beads you could arrange on mini peg boards? The boards came in shapes like animals, teddy bears, race cars, and such. The little plastic cylinders came in sorted boxes of a million colors, along with a diagram of where to place certain colors to achieve the desired result. Then, you put a piece of wax paper on the precariously positioned beads, and ran a hot clothes iron over the whole deal for a few seconds to melt them together and achieve a piece of plastic art for the fridge or wall. Perhaps it was a niche for my age or geographical area, but it was a big deal for a while.

Growing up, I was homeschooled. That meant getting to do things in a fairly relaxed pace. However, we also took "enrichment" classes with other homeschoolers at a church. This allowed a 2-3 day a week schedule where we engaged with others in a more typical classroom setting and got additional education in math, language arts, crafts, and even homeroom where we could knock out "homework" away from home! The primary goal of that homeroom class as I remember was having the coolest gun magazine to flip through after you had speedily completed your tasks and were waiting for the quiet time to be up.

But back to the beads. My first exposure to them was in just such an enrichment class. The teacher explained the beads just as I did in the first paragraph. If you'll refer to the tail end of my first blog post, I mentioned something about being a perfectionist. Also, I am a bit of an overachiever. Combined, it can be a rough road to travel when you throw on time constraints. But as I mentioned, time constraints weren't really in my understanding of the world. So, I selected a massive teddy bear peg board. About twice the size of the other options available to the class. The teacher attempted to dissuade me. No chance lady! I'm going to be #1 or nothing. Well. Meticulous placement on a large project along with lack of experience led to a drawn out timeline. Towards the end of the 30 minute class, I was about 2/3rds done with the teacher rushing children to finish. She was stressed and trying to get every single child out the door with a project to present to their parents. She wanted to show the parents the return on their educational dollar I suppose.

Again, as a young child, I had no concept of this, and I was not yet familiar with the whole idea of pushing everyone through a class with bare minimum standards. This little experience would serve as a lesson to me and also leave a lousy taste on my tongue about public education. But, I digress. The point was, I had never had an authority figure lean on me to meet a time deadline. I was probably 8 or 9. Time wasn't even something I really understood outside of feeding animals twice per day, roughly earlier and later in the day. So the teacher saying, "Just throw beads on there so we can get it finished," sounded to me like an invitation to low standards! I was angered. And felt like a failure because everyone else had finished. I wasn't going to zip a rainbow tummy and leg on my otherwise perfect brown bear with a red collar. I took the peg board, and flipped it over on the table, sending beads everywhere.

I was written up. I took a note to my mother explaining the lack of a completed project and the issue with my anger management. Now, being the firstborn son and the recipient of much time and effort at home, it was quickly forgiven, and we worked on the peg boards at the house on our own time. I would go on to complete about 20 or 30 of them in different styles, even getting the ironing time down to a "T" to make the final product sturdy, but not all bled together from excessive melting. Therein lies a glimpse into my brain function.

This might be humorous. It certainly is worth a chuckle. But, like basically everything else, I have not forgotten it nor written it off as inconsequential. When it comes to magnifying mole hills, I'm in a class of my own. But it does seem there's a great deal to be learned from the seemingly innocuous occurrences in life. Leaving the teacher and the structure of public education out of it, I can see my difficulty handling time sensitive scenarios make its first public appearance. At a much later date in a public classroom, I would be privately patronized about my "obvious lack of mental capacity due to a lax homeschooling environment." That junior college professor said she hoped I would catch up. I would pass the class with an "A" and be the first to complete every lab after that little pull aside.

We could presume that was a more constructive response. Even celebrate it as "using the haters for fuel!" But it was the same overblown response to being pushed about finishing a project quickly. If you have a keen eye, you also read into my lack of punishment for failing the class project. I was the golden child full of brilliance and promise. It wasn't lack of my abilities, it was lack of understanding from my educator! In the twenty years after that little event, I have yet to find anyone outside of immediate family that gives two cents about my supposed brilliance or their understanding of my unique needs. If I did hand them an IQ test result sheet, I suppose they would decry it as awfully rough toilet paper, and suggest I get my rear in gear and accomplish what they're paying me for.

So there we have it. No one cares. Life sucks, then you die. Those are obvious hyperbole we can punch holes in, but logic is hard to come by when you lock yourself in your own mind with no external voices. For, as I mentioned, it certainly seems the external voices don't care about my internal dialogue, so why would I listen to their logic? There's the old saying that people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. It's oft misapplied in this modern age of accommodation. We can't chance telling the truth or offending anyone. But I'm more than willing to criticize myself, and as such am willing to field criticism from others, if I am aware that they are giving it in effort to see me become better. If it's just to help their own bottom line, I'm less than interested in their "advice."

We all can hopefully point to at least one person who is invested in us without a thought to what they can personally gain from our self improvement. Some people sell their advice, and so are rather up front with what they are gaining. If it's really helpful, I can respect that, and I have frankly gained a lot of good from relatively little money spent on books, classes, training, and etc. Unfortunately, we are all aware of the leaches looking to profit off of you or cheat you. There's the group of friends and/or family that are willing to brush over our faults, for better or worse, but that rarely helps spur our growth. Rare are the folks who will invest in you for no obvious gain to themselves. I think this is a big draw to religion. Regardless of your personal beliefs, it's certainly understandable how attractive it is to think that the Almighty has an interest in someone insignificant as yourself.

Mentoring, learning, and self-improvement are all things I'm keen to discuss. But this little anecdote helps lay the framework.

Onward and upward. -C