Ernie The Attorney

Everything is impossible, unless you look at it the right way.

When I was five years old my parents separated and announced they were getting a divorce. I was displeased, to say the least. None of my schoolmates had divorced parents. None of them had manic-depressive mothers either, as far as I could tell.

My mom got custody of my younger brother and me, and she tried to keep her mania under control during the ensuing custody battle. She was a good mom 90% of the time, but when she was depressed it was like being on the set of a movie like Poltergeist or The Exorcist. When her demons escaped they became everyone's demons.

Not surprisingly, I didn't do very well in school. I didn't do any of my homework assignments, and wasn't very good at keeping up with what was happening in class. I was very good at staring out of the window and daydreaming. Teachers thought my problem was that I didn't care. They were right.

Somehow I believed that I was not capable of keeping up, and I was afraid to even try. I felt particularly deficient in math, because there was no hiding my ineptitude. If you got the wrong answer that was the end of it; there was no reward for effort.

I spent several summers doing remedial work, and math was always part of my summer schedule. Every once in awhile I'd get a teacher who wanted to help me out, but eventually they gave up. They'd tell me that I was capable of doing the work, but in my mind I was just too far behind. Getting up to speed in math was impossible. 

Of course, once you decide something is impossible then it is.

When I started my senior year of high school I was living in Panama (my mom moved back to her home country when I was starting ninth grade).  My brother and I attended, for want of a better description, a "school for kids of diplomats." The kids  in that school were expected to fluently speak English, Spanish and French. All the classes were mandatory; there were no electives.

Senior year was going to be a bit dicey for me, in that we were required to take Analytic Geometry, Calculus and Physics. And the Physics class assumed knowledge of Analytic Geometry and all the other math I was supposed to have learned in prior years. The first day of class the Physics teacher (who was also a college professor, and was teaching our class because the regular teacher had left) made the students go to the blackboard to solve problems; I did poorly, as expected. The professor gruffly dismissed me, and told me that he had no problem flunking seniors who didn't keep up. A few weeks later he developed a serious medical condition and had to be replaced.

He designated one of his top students at the University of Panama to take his place. So one day a tall dark-haired fellow named Ernesto Regales showed up to teach us Physics. We worked some equations at the board while the young professor quietly watched. When I told him I couldn't work the problems, he smiled in a strange way.  He encouraged me to look at the easy problems in the beginning of the textbook chapter that we were on. I nodded appreciatively as if I was going to follow his suggestion.

Of course, that wasn't going to happen.

Then it was time for our first exam. It involved solving a bunch of problems like this one: 'Boat A is traveling North at 15 miles per hour and Boat B is traveling West at 7 miles per hour; at what speed are the two boats moving away from each other?' These problems were exactly like the ones we had been working at the blackboard, i.e. the ones I wasn't able to solve.

I wasn't able to solve them because I didn't understand the Pythagorean theorem. I knew there was some kind of formula for solving these problems, but I didn't know the formula or how it worked. So, when I took a look at the problems on the test I knew it would be impossible for me to solve any of them. I spent about 20 minutes with the test (daydreaming, mostly) and then went to turn it in.  I waited until one of the genius students turned in her test, to minimize the chance that the professor would look at my test and see it was completely blank.

I handed in the test and quickly turned away.  Just as I got to my desk he asked me to return. He was looking at me with that same weird gaze, and the placid eyes. He was obviously a religious nut.  I knew this as soon as he announced we'd all pray before our exam. His prayers weren't rotely delivered either. He'd close his eyes tightly, then enter a solemn rapture as he spoke softly to God, beseeching him to give us strength and grace. I felt like he actually expected God to help us if he prayed hard enough.

So there he was with that rapturous look, encouraging me to spend all the time I had to solve the physics problems on the exam. His expectations were well-intentioned, but completely unrealistic. The last thing I wanted to do was lie to him, so I confessed that I had not learned the formula and had no idea how to use it even if it were given to me. He was unmoved by my confession.  "Well maybe there's a way if you just sit and think about it," he said.  He was so confident, even after my blunt confession, I figured he was going to give me the formula out of pity. "No," he said, "but if you find a way that's valid I'll give you credit for figuring out how to approach the problem."

That was a decent shock! Getting credit for something other than a correct answer on a math test? I'd never heard of that before.

I plopped down in my desk, and tried to figure out what was going on. What exactly was this odd teacher expecting me to do? Surely, he didn't believe I was going to derive the formula on my own, right? Every time I looked over at him he'd smile beatifically. I was convinced there was some obvious trick that I was somehow overlooking. 

I got out a blank sheet of paper and started diagramming two boats moving away from each other. I examined the triangular relationship, wondering if I could use a ruler to measure it. I got up and asked him if I could use my ruler.  He said I could use anything that was in my desk, except for the textbook.

By now, you've probably guessed that, using the ruler, I discovered (in a very crude way) the relationship expressed in the Pythagorean theorem. I created my own problems where all of the numbers worked out to a whole number.  That is, I considered a boat going North at 4 miles per hour and a boat going West at 3 miles per hour, and concluded that they were moving away from each other at 5 miles per hour. I did this by drawing a line 4 inches long going up, and 3 inches long going left, and then measuring the distance between the ends of those lines. That line was exactly 5 inches (which is what the Pythagorean formula would yield).

Of course, Professor Regales' problems would not have answers with whole numbers. But once I discovered the relationship using the ruler I knew I had at least something I could put down in the answer section. As soon as the test was over I opened my textbook and looked at the Pythagorean formula; I was ecstatic to see that my ruler theory was valid. I assumed I'd still flunk the test, but figuring out the underlying approach was satisfying in a way that's hard to describe. Sort of like hitting a game winning field goal, except even better.

The satisfaction came from knowing that I had done something that, only moments before, seemed completely and utterly impossible. All it took was for me to try, which I had never done before. I had always expected to fail, and up til that moment that expectation became the only thing I believed in.

What made Professor Regales seem so weird was that he believed in me, even when I didn't believe in myself. After that test, I decided to try to learn math. I had to go back and work problems on my own from prior year's textbooks, but whenever I had a question Regales was always eager to help me figure it out. Other students helped me too. And the strangest thing is that, once I started trying, I found that I actually liked math. I liked Physics even more, and I discovered had a knack for solving really difficult problems. Who knew?

I graduated with excellent grades in all my classes, but my best grades were in Calculus and Physics. I wound up getting accepted to Tulane, which was a miracle of truly epic proportions. Eventually I made my way to law school and did very well (e.g. law review, Moot Court team, etc.).

A few years ago someone told me that Professor Regales had passed away. He died young, the victim of some form of cancer. The thing I remember most about him was his desire to be a priest, and help people develop their spirituality. I don't know what kind of priest Professor Regales would have been, but I know he was a great teacher. He approached his job in a way that was different than most of my other teachers; he simply smiled and encouraged us to try. I remember telling him one day that I didn't believe in God, not to hurt his feelings, but so that I didn't feel hypocritical when he asked us to pray before our exams. He said he understood, and that he appreciated my sincerity. Of course, he said it with that strange smile, which made his eyes seem to glow.

Oh, and remember that test with the Pythagorean theorem? Professor Regales gave me a 91, because he said he didn't really care about exact answers as long as you understood how to look at the problem. Very few of life's problems, it turns out, have exact answers. Certainty is nothing more than a point of view, one that is often quite debilitating, unless you are confident of what is possible rather than what's supposedly impossible.

My amazing diet: lost weight & gained profound realization

What started out as a simple diet wound up being a lot more illuminating than I would have guessed. My goal was twofold: (1) lose some weight, and (2) see if I could complete a 10 day cleanse diet that consisted of consuming nothing other than water, and a lemonade & maple syrup concoction. That is, no solid foods and a total daily caloric intake of between 600 and 1,000 calories.

I knew I would lose weight if I stayed on the diet; the question was could I really commit to that kind of ‘extreme diet.’  Actually, the diet I was on is called ‘The Master Cleanse,’ and is based on a book by a fellow named Stanley Burroughs who may or may not be a unscrupulous charlatan. I read the book quickly before I started, and found it sufficiently motivating that I was willing to take the plunge.

The book recommends that you ‘ramp down’ over a three day period to get your body used to the new eating regimen. I was in a hurry to get the challenge started so I skipped the 3 day warm up. My sister-in-law was in town and was on her 8th day of the Master Cleanse, and that was another reason I wanted to get going.  She had a radiant glow and appeared extremely healthy.  I wanted to get that same effect, and I wanted it as quickly as possible.

In retrospect, I would have made it easier on myself if I had taken advantage of the three day transition, which goes like this: First day you eat just vegetables and fruits (60/40 proportion) and drink only water. Second day you have soups and broths (and water to drink), and last day drink only orange juice and water.

The formula for the special lemonade is dead simple, and really easy to make. You squeeze fresh lemons and mix the juice in equal proportion with Maple Syrup (Grade B, preferably).  Finally you add a very small dash of Cayenne pepper.

To be precise, you add about 1 ounce of this base to 8 ounces of water.  And that’s what you drink. You can pre-make the base formula so that you can take it to work, and then you only need to add water. And cayenne. You should not pre-make the base stock with the cayenne in it because it will ferment and turn really nasty. So, if you want to travel you only need to carry the stock and a small container of cayenne pepper. Water is widely available so there is never an issue about finding that.

Despite the simplicity of the formula and the ability to easily pre-make it and carry it around, I found it hard the first few days to coordinate the making, blending and consuming of the lemonade drink. Why that was the case I will explain later in the section about ‘illuminating realizations.’

First let me tell you about the physical results of this ‘diet.’ I lost 11 lbs in 10 days. According to the book, the typical person loses about 2 lbs a day.  I found this a bit over-stated, but then maybe I didn't really need to lose so much weight. 

Weight loss depends on exercise, obviously. The days I did yoga I found that I lost more weight. I’m sure weight loss varies significantly from person to person, but there is not doubt that you will lose weight if you stay on the diet for 10 days. Some people stay on the diet for more than 10 days in order to lose more weight. Frankly, I could easily have kept going on the diet if I wanted to. Once you get past the first few days the challenge of the diet almost completely disappears.

Which brings me to what I found most illuminating about this diet: it awakens a profound awareness about your true relationship to food.

Before I started this diet I had (despite my commitment to doing yoga regularly) very bad eating habits. I ate a lot of junk food, or frozen foods. And I drank very little water (if any) during the day. Instead, I consumed a fair amount of diet coke and caffeine.

These poor eating habits made my first two days on the diet quite challenging. I had persistent headaches the whole second day, and at one point I felt semi-nauseous. I thought then that I would not be able to sustain myself for 10 days on the diet. The third day was a little easier, and then by the fourth day I felt fine and was enjoying drinking the lemonade mix.

It was on the third day that I began to awaken to the powerful realization: most of us don’t eat because our bodies are hungry; we eat because our brains tell us that we are hungry. In fact, most of our food choices are based on mental cravings rather than physiological need. This statement is almost certainly not likely to be truly understood.

Intellectually, I knew that I was eating a lot of food that my body didn’t really need. But until I got through the Master Cleanse diet I didn’t really grasp this in a meaningful way.

At several points, after the third day, I found myself momentarily craving some nearby food, usually because I was aroused by the smell. Each time I stopped and asked myself what my body would feel like if I ate some of that food. I asked myself if I would feel more satisfied with that food, as opposed to having some of the lemonade mix. Each time my body told me that the food was not what it really needed, or wanted. The longer I was on the diet, the more pronounced became my ability to gauge what my body (as opposed to my mind) wanted.

And that’s the point that was most illuminating to me: I found out that my mind has been telling me what to eat, and not my body.  And my mind not only told me what to eat, but how much.

The truth is, if we eat the right foods and get the real nutrition that our bodies need, then we don’t really need that much food. But our culture and our social habits are so engrained, and are so powerful, that it’s very hard for us to figure this out. It’s like we’re on autopilot when it comes to food.

The autopilot is constantly steering us in bad directions. But since so many other people around us are going in the same bad directions it’s hard to resist, or to become aware of what’s really going on.

As I said, I loved junk food and heavy foods, and lots of it. I have never been a vegetarian or any kind of health food nut. So, this diet experience opened my eyes without any predisposition to see things in a certain way. I fully expected to come off the diet and go back to eating lots of cheeseburgers and drinking diet cokes.

The problem now is that I know I won’t enjoy them.  Certainly not at first. No doubt I can turn over control to my mind and let myself be guided by my cravings again. But, now I’ll know deep inside doing that would be bad for my body. It’s okay to indulge a little here and there, and I certainly plan to. However, I don’t think I’ll ever resume my gluttonous habits again.

Being on what this diet and watching people eat is like being sober and hanging out with drunk people. You know you are clear headed, and you know that not much useful, or good, happens to people who aren’t clear headed. I want to be clear and I want to give my body what it really needs, at least most of the time.

I set about doing the Master Cleanse thing to lose a little weight and to meet a challenge.  The challenge was not as hard as I thought, but the insight that came from meeting that challenge was more than I ever could have imagined.

In my next post I'll talk about what has happened to me in the two weeks since I came off the diet.

What we (usually) have is a failure to communicate

One thing about being a lawyer is you have plenty of chances to try your hand at communication.  Every aspect of the practice of law involves conveying ideas, arguments, observations.  This is done in writing, and orally (e.g. speaking), but always verbally (e.g. with 'words').

Good communicators know that there is a difference between the word 'orally' and 'verbally.'  

Still, there is a lot more to good communication than knowing usage rules and grammar.  A lot of people get into arguments or misunderstandings because they are trapped in a cycle of poor communication. I'm not about to claim that having a law degree makes you a better communicator, but as I said at the outset, it gives you the opportunity to communicate in a variety of settings.

And I'm not going to claim that my communication skills are finely honed. I don't know how my skills compare to others.  I only know that they can be improved and I keep trying to improve them.

The first step for me to improve my skills is to recognize when I fail to communicate effectively. And this has always been the hardest step. After all, it's not easy to admit that you might have done a less than optimal job of conveying your point. Like most people, I tend to believe that I am always being perfectly clear. And I tend to believe that I've made my point with the proper tone, and with the proper set up.

See, that's the thing: it's not just about being clear in what you say.  You also have take the right approach. If you use an angry tone when you say something perfectly rational it will come across the wrong way and your audience will not understand. I struggle often with this issue, and I know that other people do too.

So, if you want to communicate effectively you need to listen first. You need to see what folks want to hear, what they're capable of understanding.  You need to find a way to appeal to their sensibilities.  And then you need to make your point clearly, and succinctly. If you do all of that you might be understood.

But, if you simply want to unburden yourself of thoughts and emotions as pop into your head, you will not communicate. If you cannot bring yourself to reflect on how someone else might see things then you will only communicate with people who see the world exactly the way you do.  In other words, you will waste a lot of time going through a fruitless exercise.

Some people walk around and mutter to themselves. We tend to think those people are crazy, and they may well be. But there are a lot of seemingly rational people who are actually just as hopeless.

If you want to talk you should be ready to listen, and then have a strategy for making your point. Unless you only want to talk to yourself, that is.

Thanksgiving four years after Katrina

It's hard to believe that four years have passed since the Thanksgiving after Katrina.  I spent that one alone, but was very grateful and happy as evidenced by this blog post.  I learned a lot from Katrina, and I'm still learning.  But, hey, that's what life is for, right?

I fear therefore I exist

“The problem is we think we exist,” says Natalie Goldberg — author of Writing Down the Bones. Her point is that we should write and not worry about what other people might think of what we say. We are not what we think and yet that is how we see ourselves. As though our existence is established by our thoughts.

We are carried in many directions by our “thoughts.” There’s much internal bravado—created, of course, to mask the barrenness in our lives. We feel strange and alone. At least I do. And what’s weird is that I feel this way even when, on the outside, I’m calm and content. I feel this way even when I don’t notice it. But, sometimes, like someone strolling in the park during an ominous movie scene, all I see is the blur of something ducking behind a tree. That’s when I pick up a deep-seated discomfort. I have read enough to know that this phenomenon is fairly common — but also that few people even realize what’s happening, much less are able to admit it.

Just keep the hand moving says Natalie. And so I do. Waiting to see if I catch a glimpse of the furtive figure. Sometimes during yoga I catch a glimpse. Usually one at the end of my series, when I’m upside down doing a headstand.  The headstand has been a major challenge for me.  At first I spent most of my energy being worried that I would fall. And at first I did fall. A lot. But now I rarely fall. 

And yet I’m still afraid of falling.  

The other day something interesting happened during headstand as I was upside down, completely calm and totally relaxed. I caught a glimpse of fear.  What fear?  That’s what I asked myself.  Suddenly I realized that the 'fear of falling' is not really my biggest fear; it’s that the fear is that things will change too suddenly.  As I challenge myself I feel like things are changing.  The change that’s coming is good, and I would like to be open to it.  But I can’t quite get past this weird fear.  Why? Because I'm afraid it will feel like falling, but in a much more frightening way.  Weird, isn’t it?

I guess I need to understand my fears better.

Farewell Dad

I haven't really known how to blog about this, so I'm kind of late in putting this out there:  My dad passed away in Panama on March 31st.  He was 85 and he'd been diagnosed with Parkinson's many years ago.  The past couple of years were pretty hard on him, so when he got pneumonia it was just too much to handle.  I managed to get to Panama in time to be with him at the very end, and I can say that he died with a smile on his face.  A really big one. 

My dad spent most of his life smiling.  Merely being in his presence caused other people to smile too. 

He was born right before the Great Depression, and fought in World War II.  His father was a Lutheran minister and had 5 kids, of which my father was the oldest.  Actually, he had an 'older brother' George, who was actually a cousin that was taken in because his parents both died during an Influenza epidemic.

My dad taught me and my brother many things, but the main thing he taught us was that pettiness and excuses are a waste of time.  My father was never sick, and certainly never missed work or anything else because he didn't feel well.  He believed that it was more important to 'believe in things' than to try to make money.  He made money, but that was simply the natural by-product of hard work. And the thing he worked hardest at was helping people.

My dad was a psychiatrist, which was tough for me to deal with as a kid.  First, because I couldn't pronounce the word and, second, because I couldn't understand it, much less explain it to my friends.  One day my friend Gary asked me if it was true my dad could read minds.  I told him 'no,' but I wasn't really sure. Somehow my dad seemed to know a lot about what people were thinking, even when they didn't tell them.

It's a Hollywood cliché that shrinks are weird and creepy, but in some cases it's true. My dad was the opposite of that cliché.  He was a whirling dervish of enthusiasm and curiosity.  He'd hop out on the dance floor at the drop of a hat, and his charm was boundless.  Even after they'd divorced, my mother reminded me often of how enthralled she was by my father.  She wasn't the only one.

My dad was open and extremely friendly, and yet very mysterious.  But there was one thing that absolutely fascinated him: the power of the human unconscious.  He became a psychoanalyst and spent most of his professional life in a dark room listening to people plumb the depths of their unconscious.  My father didn't talk very much about what he did, but I know he was exceptionally good at it.  I know this because countless people have come up to me at various times and told me how grateful they were for his help.  If they hadn't told me I wouldn't have even known that he'd treated them.  

My dad's illness was was cruel.  The last few years were particularly hard.  He never complained much; usually he just made light of his situation.  I wish that he had not suffered so much, but I learned as much watching him deal with death as I did watching him in the prime of life.  We all face struggles, and there isn't much point in complaining about them. 

My dad is in a better place now.  I really believe that.  His smile at the end of his life is proof, for me at least, that life is not all flesh and bones.  My dad was right: what you believe in matters, and matters more than anything.  You can decide what to believe in, and you can choose the intensity of your belief.  If you smile you can change your life, and the lives of those around you.

So, if you want to help me remember my dad, just smile.  

Thanks.

The final services for my dad will be on Monday, April 27th at noon at Lakelawn Funeral Home (i.e. Metairie cemetary).  The visitation will start at 11:00 am.  The Times Picayune will carry the notice on Friday before the service.

Iceland, what made you think you were so special?

Michael Lewis' recent article in Vanity Fair is a must read on so many levels.  First, it's fascinating account of how Iceland, a quaint little country that has been isolated from the world of International finance for more than a millennium, suddenly became a careening high roller.  And then promptly became bankrupt. As in: 'the whole country became bankrupt.'

But there's another level (as their always is when Lewis looks at a situation) that I find more Interesting. How did a bunch of people who made their money for hundreds of years by fishing come to believe that they had an aptitude for high finance?  This short blurb, in which Lewis talks with an Icelandic fellow, kind of sums it up:

It took years of training for him to become a captain, and even then it happened only by a stroke of luck. When he was 23 and a first mate, the captain of his fishing boat up and quit. The boat owner went looking for a replacement and found an older fellow, retired, who was something of an Icelandic fishing legend, the wonderfully named Snorri Snorrasson. “I took two trips with this guy,” Stefan says. “I have never in my life slept so little, because I was so eager to learn. I slept two or three hours a night because I was sitting beside him, talking to him. I gave him all the respect in the world—it’s difficult to describe all he taught me. The reach of the trawler. The most efficient angle of the net. How do you act on the sea. If you have a bad day, what do you do? If you’re fishing at this depth, what do you do? If it’s not working, do you move in depth or space? In the end it’s just so much feel. In this time I learned infinitely more than I learned in school. Because how do you learn to fish in school?”

This marvelous training was as fresh in his mind as if he’d received it yesterday, and the thought of it makes his eyes mist.

“You spent seven years learning every little nuance of the fishing trade before you were granted the gift of learning from this great captain?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“And even then you had to sit at the feet of this great master for many months before you felt as if you knew what you were doing?”

“Yes.”

“Then why did you think you could become a banker and speculate in financial markets, without a day of training?”

“That’s a very good question,” he says. He thinks for a minute. “For the first time this evening I lack a word.” As I often think I know exactly what I am doing even when I don’t, I find myself oddly sympathetic.

Funny how easy it is for us to believe that we suddenly understand something that common sense should tell us is not that easily known.  I suggest that this a human (as opposed to an Icelandic) phenomenon by the way.  But of course we already knew that, didn't we?

Failure to communicate

This past week has given me the opportunity (not enjoyable, but then things that spur us toward growth often are not enjoyable) to revisit something I've come upon before.  How people miscommunicate is not something that we seem to understand enough about.  Or at least that's true for me.

I've noticed that, in my case, the problem stems from assuming that the other person has the same information that I do. Or a similar viewpoint.  Sometimes the disconnect is something more in my control, and sometimes it's more the other person.  But usually it's both parties.

I think I need to listen much better.  I try to listen, and I ruminate a lot on what I hear.  And I often try to read between the lines to make sure I'm getting the complete picture.  But listening seems not to be enough.  Maybe I need to ask more questions, or maybe it's something more than that.

People are guarded for all kinds of reasons.  I knew that, of course.  And that's why I try to 'read between the lines,'  but that doesn't work if the person is clever about being guarded.  And this 'cleverness' isn't even conscious.

So, what's the point of this post?  Up to now it must seem completely self-absorbed in an odd way (e.g. not enough background information whilst presenting a strong 'confessional quality.').  Okay, let me move on to the "Universal Point," with background information that's not really at the heart of my self-assessment, but will bring us to some sort of useful thought.

When I went to see my dad a few days ago I was confronted with a person who is in the last stages of Parkinsons.  He can barely walk and can't stand up without assistance.  But the most troubling limitation for him is that his mind has unraveled.  He can talk (although his voice is often weak), but he can't really talk about things that are part of a common understanding.  He lives in a semi-fantasy world, in which he sometimes recognizes the faces of those around him, but sometimes not.

One of his caretakers is very good at communicating with him, and he seems to be at ease with her. One of the other caretakers is not good at communicating with him.  At this point you might ask: how does one 'communicate well' with a person who barely recognizes what's going on around them?  

Good question!

The answer wasn't obvious to me until I saw the difference, and understood something powerful which now seems like it should be obvious. My father relies primarily on his emotions (or something other than his mind) to understand when people communicate with him.  One caretaker is patient with him and understand his struggles because she's been with him for five years.  He senses love from her, and he appreciates it.  He may not understand her words well, but he interprets them in the context of her love.

The other caretaker also has great concern for my dad, but she's new and doesn't know his background as well.  She tries to communicate with him using words, even though she knows he doesn't understand what's being said.   She tries hard to communicate, but it's just not working out as well as she would like.  My father senses her frustration, and interprets her words in that context.

So my point is that words are not the primary communication tool.  Perhaps it's love.  That, and deep understanding.

The best tree ever

My dad always made a big deal about Christmas trees. The scene in A Christmas Story where the dad picks out the tree was clearly modeled on my dad. Every year we wound up with "the best tree ever." My dad always saw things in the best possible light.

So here it is: a picture of the best tree ever.

Flying by the seat of your pants

When I was younger I used to get obsessed with some new interest and then make all kinds of plans as to how I would carry out my obsession. I still get obsessed with new (or old) things, but with one important difference. I don't make hardly any plans. It's taken me a long time, pretty much my whole life, to figure out that I'm not very good with plans. Which is not to say that I never make plans, or that I don't think they're important (they are). It's just that I finally figured out that my strong personal inclination makes it hard for me to rely too much on plans.

Knowing that one thing has made my life a lot easier.

Growing up, I felt like it was my duty to plan things, and then carry out the plans exactly as they were conceived. Actually, in the beginning the planning was done for me by adults. School was filled with plans (e.g. homework and projects). And guess what? From about kindergarten to the first month of my senior year in high school I did really poorly in school. For reasons that I'll explain in a minute, I had this amazing turn around my senior year and started getting straight A's.

Looking back, I think that one incident in particular was highly symbolic of my disconnect with 'planning.'

For some reason I always loved music. I wanted to play the guitar, but I didn't know anyone who even owned a guitar, much less played one. No one in my family played any musical instruments (except my mom's mom, but she lived in Panama and I didn't see her that often). When I was about ten I went to the house of my friend Linus (named after the nobel scientist, not the cartoon character) and he started playing his piano. He was really good. I told him that I wanted to play, but I didn't know how to learn. He started showing me some simple stuff, like how to play chopsticks. So I pestered my mom to get a piano and let me take lessons. She was completely excited and said fine.

Flash forward to about six months later. I've been dutifully going to lessons with Mrs. Howard, and I feel like things are not exactly turning out the way I had hoped. Mrs. Howard had a very specific plan for me, and she assured me that if I followed it with dedication I'd become a great pianist. "So, show me how far you've come with 'The Magic Froggy,'" she said with a magisterial splendor. She had no way of sensing the truth: I didn't really care for that particular opus in the Baldwin tutorial.

A few days later I went to Linus' house and he was playing the Petula Clark song called Downtown. I loved that song! I told him how much I wanted to play that song, but I realized that it would be years before Mrs. Howard would be letting me take up such complex works. Linus assured me that it wasn't complex at all. He proceeded to work with me, very patiently demonstrating each passage and then letting me practice it. All of a sudden I was excited again! I realized that a seemingly complex musical piece is nothing more than a bunch of simple pieces strung together.

I practiced Downtown over and over until I had the whole thing down pat. And then I made the mistake of showing Mrs. Howard what I had learned from my friend. Instead of complimenting me on my determination, she chided me for wasting time on something that was not relevant. "You need to learn to stick to the practice plan," she warned. "Concentrate on practicing what you are studying here, and they're be plenty of time for those kinds of songs soon enough." Reluctantly, I went back to practicing The Magic Froggy.

My favorite song at the time was something called "Windy," by The Association. I bought the 45 with my allowance and wore out the grooves playing it over and over on my mom's stereo. Now that would be a cool song to learn on the piano. I sat down at the piano and plucked the notes. All of a sudden I started to figure out how to play the melody. I was shocked! Even Linus had to use written sheet music to learn his songs, and here I was playing 'by ear.' The whole idea of playing 'by ear' was something I thought only musical prodigies like Mozart could do. Caught in the euphoria, I spent the next few hours slowly mastering the song I loved the most in all the world. I thought that if I learned the whole thing I could show Mrs. Howard and then she'd agree to help me learn the full version using written sheet music. It was kind of like that scene in Christmas Story when Ralphie thinks if he writes the killer essay his teacher will help him convince his mom to get him a Red Ryder BB gun.

Me and Ralphie suffered pretty much the same fate. Mrs. Howard, instead of complimenting me, scolded me for attempting to play a song without proper sheet music. She said that I needed to learn to read music if I intended to be a musician, and this effort would only get in the way.

Shortly after that event I lost interest in piano completely and stopped taking lessons.

But many years later, when I was living in Panama I met a guy who lived across the hall who played guitar. He played mostly classical music, but he could play popular music too if he wanted to. I asked him who he took lessons from. He said he learned to play by ear, all by himself. Of course, I knew he was lying. I had never met anyone who could play by ear, which seemed to prove what Mrs. Howard told me. To prove it, I asked him to play a Cat Stevens song that I knew he didn't know. He said it would take him awhile to work it out and he didn't want to do it in front of me.

The next day he came over and, sure enough, he could play the song. Really well. I asked him how hard it was to play the guitar, and he replied that it was actually really easy. I remarked that it wasn't easy enough for someone like me. He laughed and said that I, of all people, would find it especially easy. Why, I asked?

"Well, you obviously like music and you probably would like to learn songs that you like to play." He showed me a simple song that I knew from the radio and I was shocked at how easy it was to strum the chords. When my mom asked me what I wanted for my birthday I told her I wanted a guitar. This time she had a completely skeptical look on her face. "Are you sure?" she sighed. Yes, I was sure.

Over the next few months my friend David taught me lots of songs, all of which he figured out by ear. I studied the process that he used, and while it seemed simple enough it also seemed way beyond my abilities. Over the years, of course, my abilities improved. I met other people who played by ear. I found out that there was a whole genre of music based on the idea of improvisation (e.g. jazz). Now in college, my dad was encouraging me to learn jazz guitar. I thought that was too hard, but he pushed me. He offered to get me a teacher, and I started taking lessons. I had reconnected with Linus, and he was now playing some jazz and he and I decided to take lessons together. My teacher said he'd have to show me on the piano, so I went back to getting a piano. But this time the idea was for me to learn how to figure songs out for myself. I was in heaven.

So what does all this have to do with school and how in one weird moment I went from being a horrible student to being a really good one? It has to do with an exceptional teacher that I had.

The school I went to in Panama was pretty demanding. It was a tri-lingual school where the graduates emerged speaking fluent Spanish and English. Half of the classes were in Spanish and the other half in English. You might take Math in English one year and then in Spanish the next. There was also a French class which was taught completely in French. Anyway, I did bad in all of the classes, but math was my worst subject. Lots of rules and formulas and exact answers. Definitely not my cup of tea.

We were required to take Physics that year, and it was not a simple introduction kind of class. It assumed knowledge of Algebra, Trignometry and Analytic Geometry, and it was taught by a college professor. I didn't like the professor, mostly because I knew he would be brutal for someone like me. Fortunately for me (but not for him), he got sick and had to turn the class over to his 'star graduate student.' The grad student was named "Ernesto" (ironic) and he was the complete antithesis of what I expected a Physics professor to be. He was exceedingly calm and he spoke in a very soothing voice, kind of like you'd hear from a devout monk. Turns out he was a devout Catholic, and belonged to an order of Evangelicals. As in, the church he went to believed in faith healing and speaking in tongues.

Wonderful.

His first task as a teacher was to administer the first big mid-term test. He passed out the exam booklets and told us to leave them on our desks. Then he told us to close our eyes and put our hands together. Then he started to pray out loud. I closed my eyes and tried to keep from laughing. My urge to laugh stopped completely when I opened the exam and saw that I had no idea how to answer any of the questions. All of the questions were variations on this theme: Boat A is going north at 10 miles per hour and Boat B is going west at 15 miles per hour. How fast are the boats going away from each other?

After 10 minutes I stood up and went to turn my exam in. I hadn't answered a single question. Professor Regales wouldn't let me. He said I had 50 more minutes to do the exam and I would have to use all 50 remaining minutes to solve the problems. "But these are all based on the Pythagorean equation, right?" Yes, so why don't you solve them using that equation, he asked? I told him I didn't know the equation (yes, sadly, it's true) and I assumed that he wasn't going to remind me. He confirmed that he would not give me the formula, but insisted that I sit down and think about the problem and see if I didn't have some kind of insight.

I sat down and let my mind wander (my forté). I figured I'd just let 50 minutes go by and then turn the exam in. After about 30 minutes my mind began to think about this idea of a right triangle, one boat going up and the other going across. Hmmmm, there was a constant relationship there. But how to measure it?

I looked around in my desk and found a ruler. I started to take measurements. I created some of my own questions that worked well with my ruler. One boat goes 4 miles per hour north, and another goes 3 miles per hour west. Looks like if you draw a 4 inch line and a 3 inch line and then measure you get a 5 inch line. Okay, measuring the relationship works. I popped up to ask if I could use a ruler to answer the questions. Big smile. Sure, why not?

So, I went ahead and answered all the questions using my ruler. When the exam came back I found out I had scored a 91, which was an A minus. Completely fucking incredible! I had never scored anything better than a 78 on a math exam. The professor explained that he was giving me full credit for solving the core problem. He said he only deducted minimal points for calculation errors.

Man, I loved this guy!

I got hooked on Physics. Turned out I was really good a figuring out the solutions, even better than some of the 'best math students' in the class. I decided to go back and learn the stuff I had not learned the previous couple of years. I got out my old textbooks and started working the problems. I only worked a problem until I understood how the math worked, and then I'd skip ahead. Amazingly, it only took me a few weeks to learn a bunch of math that had consumed years of class time. In the end I graduated with all A's (except French, which was hard because you can't cram a foreign language into your head, at least not if you are going to be tested on grammar and conjugation).

So, I should have known by the time that I graduated from high school that I don't learn things or do things the way other people do. I wish I could, actually. I think it's much better to proceed methodically and to be able to learn in a traditional classroom setting, mostly because that is the predominate system. But that's not how it works for me.

Somehow, I can't get past boredom.

The other thing that I have learned is that people who rely heavily on plans find it impossible to fathom how anyone could learn by 'improvisation' or 'trial and error.' That's why they are so adamant that people not ignore "the plan." To them, it's like walking off of a cliff and expecting to fly. The weird thing is that's how it feels to me too. But, somehow it works, and I wish I could explain it but I can't.