two things....

First of all,I feel dumb a lot. But I also feel smart most of the time. You know when I feel the dumbest? When I've taken for granted that I'm smart.

A close second is mathematics. So I'll use it analogously.

If I were to learn an algebraic formula, and apply it to some problem, and I am unable to solve that problem with my formula, I'm the type of person who would immediately decide that the problem is unsolvable. Either with the tools/formulas I have been given or simply because the problem is "stupid". I look outside myself for the answer and assume that it is something I haven't learned yet.

Then I figure out (more often, someone shows me) that I haven't done the right steps, or used the right integers. Then I feel sooo stupid.

Because up to the point that I realize my mistake I am saying in my head "this equals that blah blah blah. DUH! and this equals this = DUH!" and when someone tries to teach me how to solve the problem I am thinking "don't patronize me, don't talk slowly to me like I'm an idiot. Don't you think I know how to do that? Don't you think I DID that already?"

What's even more embarrassing is that I sometimes do this for a very long period of time before I even consider the possibility that it is an error on my part. I think "I've done this a million times, I'm pretty sure I know what I'm doing, thank you very much." and then I say "...oh. Dang. I've been doing this wrong the whole time. I learned it wrong!" How stupid I feel. Anyway, this analogy sucks, because I don't think there is ANY mathematical function I have done a million times, and I am not even remotely familiar enough with any formulas that I could take for granted that I know them through and through. But I figure the rest of the world can relate on that level--automatically assuming that they are right, or know something to be fact, but find out that they never really listened in the first place.

Point is, I'm trying to stop taking for granted that I know something simply because I've heard it a thousand times before, and I'm willing to go back to the stone age and count rocks and twigs, if that's what it takes to learn the underlying truths I have proclaimed to be knowledgeable about up to now.

I took to much time talking about point #1 and forgot what point number 2 was supposed to be about. Standby, maybe it will come to me.

nope.

Till next time!

Okay, I just remembered, but it gets its own post.