Rememberment

In youth sports and academia, statistics show a significant "talent bias" towards kids who were born in January. Conversely, those born in the last months of the year tend to have all kinds of issues - they are more prone to social challenges, struggle in sports and are over-represented among those who get diagnosed with ADHD. The sign of either a winner or a loser, but rarely something in between. This is called the Relative Age Effect (RAE), also known as birthdate effect. Because schoolkids are grouped according to their birth year, those who have been born early in the year have a significant edge in both their mental and physical development compared to those born in the last months. And so, among other kids in their class they stand out as faster, stronger and more mature than their classmates, while in reality they are simply older. School is a competitive environment, but the competition isn't fair. While trained (and  competent ) teachers are aware of RAE and sho...

Fifth grade started in a school near the center of town. There was a lot to adjust to: my commute became about twice as long as before, the building and the environment were unfamiliar to me, and our class group was also different, with many familiar faces but also new ones. A new school also meant a new set of teachers. I quickly got along with our new arts teacher, which was understandable as it was one of the few subjects I actually enjoyed. He was a charismatic man with a lot of personal talent for drawing and painting. I also liked our English teacher, a young lady with lots of energy and a voice that I enjoyed listening to. (Isn't it funny how memory works? I cannot remember her name or even her face anymore, but I can still clearly remember her voice). Among my less-than favourite teachers were our new sports coach, a short and loud man who used to be a football coach of some fame, our Guidance Counselor (during lunch, we had assigned seats and I had to sit right next to him...

Some time ago a dear friend of mine lent me a book, "Freedom from the Known" by Jiddu Krishnamurti. I only just started reading it, but I can already tell that it's a hit for me. In only the first 16 pages or so, the author has already established that pretty much every ideology, philosophy and religion in the world is all just bullshit that is being spoon-fed to us. It's a pretty bold stance and since I haven't even read the whole book yet, I may have to return to it in my future posts, but this initial point is already one that resonates with me. His actual point is easy to miss. It's not that it would be useless to seek wisdom and answers to all the big questions; the point is that we have a tendency of hoping those answers are handed to us on a silver platter. How Krishnamurti sees it, however, is that true wisdom comes from the process of figuring things out on your own. It's like with most skills: for example, while someone might explain to you how t...

Being a full 10 years old felt significant. I was a big boy now and I knew it.  No doubt that feeling was further amplified by the fact that I was now a fourth grader, as high as it got in our school. Furthermore, Dad said that I was now old enough to handle a BB gun. I had tried shooting before and enjoyed it quite a bit, so I was thrilled. He bought me the gun and gave me all the instructions on how and how not to use it, and soon I spent most of my time outside practicing with my new weapon. That's not the main thing I remember about that year though. On the 28th of January, the Space Shuttle Challenger took off from Cape Canaveral. Initially, everything seemed to be fine. But after about a minute and a half after liftoff, the vehicle suddenly exploded in a cloud of smoke and debris, killing its crew of seven people. The Challenger explosion remained the main news headline for quite a while, until it again made room for the usual Cold War news and the seemingly eternal conflict ...