Amy BoughnerI don’t know how to read an analog clock. I don’t know if I missed that day at school, but I have never been able to remember which hand is which. If I look for long enough I can figure it out, but then I’m embarrassed for having stared at the clock for so long.
My memory for geographical details is just as bad. Canadian geography I’m pretty good at, but push me worldwide and I lose the plot a bit. I’m getting better, because I’m pushing myself to learn – did a lot of worldle at the start of the pandemic, learned about the countries around Ukraine when the attacks started.
I’ve been watching Richard Osman’s House of Games and they have one round called Where is Kazakhstan? and they bring up maps and the contestants have to find things on a map or picture. Sometimes I do better than the contestants – I know which states are right under the provinces – and sometimes I really, really don’t. (I really wish I were better at South American countries).
I grew up in a house full of books, surrounded by intelligence. It was a delight and a privilege, but it also meant that when I felt stupid I felt it really, really hard. I felt like the dumbest person in the family.
There are things that just don’t stick, and I’m trying to be okay with that because I’m trying to be a good example and also not judge other people for the things they don’t know.
Sometimes there are things we just haven’t come across, a word we haven’t heard out loud, a movie we’ve never seen.
It so happens my brain contains a lot of trivia, and I do know a lot of things that other people don’t. I am a smart person, I do well at word puzzle and I test myself with crosswords. I seek out knowledge, I want it all.
I want other people to want the knowledge too. I can have empathy for people when they don’t know things, but not so much for people who don’t care to know at all.
