The Challenge of Thinking Differently

December 8th, 2018

As you know, I struggle with higher math/College Algebra. It’s not that I don’t want to learn it. It’s like rubbing a cats fur the wrong way: all attempts simply don’t work. I’m not adapting.

Then last night, something a family member said when I asked her to help me with it (more evidence that I am trying), made me get a little closer to understanding the inherent split of certain kinds of people around us. Something I kind of already knew — but this conversation sealed it for me.

Truth is, anyone with ears was asked to help me with this algebra, and each person has said they don’t know it anymore nor plan to want to know it. Still, somehow, the passed it in the past. I’m not stupid to understand people cheat or work very very hard. For me, working very hard isn’t working. Cheating is costly.

So, I asked her if she could help and she didn’t know it anymore. I said “here’s proof that it’s a worthless skill with no one I know; people who are considered professional, don’t use it!”.

She went on to say, “it’s untrue. Knowing Algebra trains your brain to think a certain way.”

I wasn’t trying to argue with her, but my initial feelings were: if it helps you train your brain a certain way, then you’re not exactly the person (i.e. sheep) I want to be by the end result of learning it — then never using it — then forgetting it.

By her logic, if you’re trained by Algebra, then you should still know the skill, or at the very least, think in mathematical terms. None of which is apparent in the people I’ve asked for help. I get that algebra is great for engineers and scientists. I get that completely. None of the people I know are engineers or scientists. No…my ex wife has an engineering degree. Asked her to help: she doesn’t know it or use it. The same woman that had no clue to setup a dvd player so of course.

Yeah, so, on one hand, my family member’s answer is bullshit.

On the other hand, I get that there are plenty of people are sheep to learn a shit skill, forced by a system to learn something that doesn’t apply later in life in a direction to make everyone think the same way.

For instance, forced to get a Bachelors degree for something I self-learned and extremely qualified in … but a degree says “you learned OUR way not YOUR way.”

Then you get to the job and they barely require a 1% of your skill set that you spent thousands of dollars to an education system that just keeps reaping money to make everyone think the same way.

If you think differently, the struggle is to have anything in a world of that won’t let you have unless you do as others do.

Its very much like what the internet is turning out to be: controlled ways of thinking or what you write will not be read nor seen.

Teamwork DOES Suck: Part 2

September 5th, 2018

I have proof that teamwork is a faux title for an individual process.

And that it sucks!

So, two weeks ago, we had a group project in class and an individual project at the same time. Both powerpoint.

The group powerpoint instructed us to build a rough draft of our eventual final powerpoint. Each unit is seven days and, as a group, we looked stupid because we didn’t know how to proceed. Classes start Wednesday, and it was Sunday when I decided to say “Fuck it, this is what the rough draft is going to look like and I created a ten page slide-document with inserted pictures, and a whole lot of filler that literally said “blah, blah, blah” for areas we had nothing written in yet.

So, I submitted it to the group and my expectations were for everyone to fill in more things to make or fix the draft. I stopped looking at it and was expecting the five others to pass it around and adjust it.

Then I went ahead and did my individual project that same day. Another 8-9 slide powerpoint with audio as instructed.

I got an “A” for the Individual Project.

The Team got an “A” for the uploaded rough draft. That was the last I looked at the draft and we had a week break for Labor Day.

Two days ago, I get a call from a chick in my team (since we passed around phone numbers) and she’s like “I don’t know what we’re doing. What do you need me to do to help the group, etc, etc”. Now, in my head, I’m thinking the team contributed to the rough draft I provided. I told her to be calm. This was just a rough draft. We should start filling in the stuff “everyone else” contributed. Just continue from there.

I thought it was odd that she would call me in the first place, but figured since I was the most vocal about bullshit, it may be made sense.

I was wrong.

She called me because I’m doing all the fucking work.

Turns out, when I opened the group powerpoint that was submitted for the grade, the entire fucking powerpoint is all me. Nothing was added or changed. Even all the “Blah” filler was left right where it was. Embarrassing! I even put in a self-deprivation joke that made it clear I was the one who did the slides.

All that was supposed to be replaced or changed by the others.

Nope. As is — submitted and we all got the “A”.

So yeah, guess who they’re looking to get the job done. That’s why I got the phone call.

Most times, I feel I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing in these classes. Yeah, I still get “A” so that last statement doesn’t make sense. I know that. It’s a self-confidence thing that I can’t fix. It’s times when I think I know something, I often fail or get it wrong.

It’s the craziest thing. The moment I say “I know this! I can do this!”, I fail. The more times I say I’m not sure or I don’t know, it just works out and I pass.

Never fails.

So, I spend more of my time being surprised things work out.

That Math Algebra class is coming around again.

It’s all about cheating, though. I tried to study the lowest form of pre-algebra I could and it’s impossible. My mind won’t connect with it.

I’m hiring someone off of craigslist to do the weekly assignments and I’m not giving a fuck.

What Does a Racist Feel?

July 14th, 2018

Here I am: another weekend cooped up in front of this computer trying to learn Algebra from the ground up. I’m using the Khan Academy website for a lot of help. Regardless, I can’t stand being around math for longer than a few minutes.

Every video I listen to and quiz I take feels like rubbing stroking a cat’s fur backward; against the grain, sort of speak. My flesh is crawling. My head hurts from the attempt to soak in ridiculous equations that I don’t care to retain — or has anything to do with me. I don’t HAVE to know it. I don’t WANT to know about it. It’s not a matter of ‘fear’, but the adaptation of associating with higher math is against everything that is within me. All I hear, as hard as I try, is a jumble of numbers that will never connect with me. in comparison to things that DO connect easily with me — words, sentences, and paragraphs — math is the polar opposite.

With those feelings exposed, as I do, I looked at how those feelings relate to others. That above paragraph likely, without a doubt, details what someone who is deemed a ‘racist’ feels about other races. We like to throw it around that fear and anger is what breeds that kind of person, but consider the possibility of genuinely born having opposing rejection.

It’s not too hard of a stretch to imagine. As humans, we master our DNA for generations passing down traits, physical and mental so why not a molded preference to auto-hate something. Why are a lot of creative people born into one family with the occasional one born without a creative bone in their body? Why can one person swim in an ocean of math like a fish and the same person crash and burn in other subjects? I wrote about the roles life dishes out to us. This is just one consideration and, considering how many people out there ‘hate’ based on color, it kind of reasons with the numbers.

We can take a full family of generational racists and think their next child will come out one to because of the way the family teaches him or her. Come to find out, no matter how much they are exposed to it, they still reject it. It happens but that story is seldom told. No matter how long and hard I reject math, my daughters are good with it. My son isn’t. So on and so forth.

Hammering into it every day and it’s just. not. sticking. It repulses me.

I reject it like racists reject others.

Both of us are losing out in growth.

Algebra Sucks

July 4th, 2018

I’m in this really advanced Algebra class that doesn’t start off with any remedial basics; just throws us into fucking equations that are just CRAZY. Way beyond anything I ever needed before, and will never use in the future.

I’ve stripped the internet of every ounce of algebra assistance and calculators I can get my hands on and it’s like my mind just can’t process this shit. Mostly because I’m feeling it’s shit I will never use. The fuck am I going to need to find the fucking slope intercept for? They argue that we use algebra every day, but I guaran-fucking-tee to you that we don’t break down what we do into fucking algebra expressions for shit.

So, I have a talent for writing, I have original storytelling abilities, and I can’t make a living writing but I have to force feed this math shit I will never use in order to be accepted into society with passing grades?

I’m going to finish this course and never need to use this shit again. For Christ’s sake, I never had to use it since fucking high school.

So, I’m cheating. Calculators, anyone who knows this shit, I don’t care. I’m getting an A out of this class one way or another.