John's Mind
John L. Waters
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John's Mind
John L. Waters
March 7, 2001
Copyright 2001 by John L. Waters. All Rights
Reserved
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John's Mind
Being able to think quickly and accurately
on your feet is important when you are a soldier, a
hunter, a ball player or a competitive business
person. One wrong decision can result in a serious
loss, even death or bankruptcy. The virtue of
quick-wittedness, then, is often recognized and
celebrated.
What virtue is there, then, in John if the
man often can't think unless he is sitting in a
peaceful environment and working a writing instrument
with his hands? What's good about having to feel and
move objects around without being able to visualize
and imagine how they will look without actually
handling them and moving them? When ones eyes and
mind don't work well in the ordinary ways, a person
sometimes can develop some other intelligence to an
unusual degree.
For example, in ninth grade Physical
Education class, John made non-handicapped boys livid
with rage because he picked up the football and ran
towards his own team's goal line. The screams these
boys let fly at him are still part of John's memory.
It's a funny story now, but even as an adult John may
do an equally stupid thing, and sometimes his remarks
seem inane. Since that time, John has developed a
compensatory talent. Developing this talent has
helped John think better and communicate better.
It's reasonable to suggest that when a
child enjoys moving about a great deal it's because
all that body movement stimulates the brain's pleasure
center. The young person's pleasure may be so great
that the child hops, skips, rocks, throws things,
spins, climbs, walks and runs a lot more than
cogitates. Listening, looking, tasting, sniffing and
savoring fragrances and sensing in other ways adds to
this physically hyperactive child's prodigious
enjoyment of life. But John's slow mind failed to
keep up with his rapidly growing body, and at school
the teachers and the children were curious to know why
the young man didn't talk more. He just didn't know
what to say. Now he knows more about himself.
The kinesthetic, movement-oriented child
develops a special keenness of physical sense, but
this person may not speak easily and listen
attentively to people. Without the subtle speech to
express the sensitivity, the handicapped person can't
get other people to understand his or her special joy
and talent. People view the quiet child's lack of
social skills as a big negative and society may never
appreciate the special virtue which lies buried in the
depths of this person.
Thinking takes brain work and word use
distracts one from other brain activities. But when,
for example, a person spends hours each day in a
flower garden and moves through it with uncommon
delight, he or she appreciates the colors, the
fragrances, and the details of spiders, insects, buds,
leaves, and stems, as well as the many colorful
blossoms. Wherever one is, a person can sense more
keenly without thinking or talking. Switching off
that part of the brain allows other parts of the brain
to function more actively.
However, an individual who grows up without
learning the subtleties of sophisticated thinking may
get some unusual ideas. Furthermore, the slow-witted
person's inability to keep up with other people's
quick wits will make it difficult for him or her to
follow the peer group's thinking and gracefully
integrate his or her own ideas with theirs. Because
of this, many people will pay no attention to the slow
person's ideas. Social awkwardness may make a person
seem valueless.
Even so, there's a lot to sense inside your
body and there's a lot to sense outside your body, and
the child who grows up reading, talking, listening to
people and thinking is rather cut off from the big
wide world of pure sensations. Putting this another
way, people get very narrowly confined in some small
game space or personal space of intense interaction,
competition, and focus. They miss a lot and don't
ever know it.
There's a whole world to sense and there are
many different sensory channels. In social
interactions one is paying attention mostly to the
appearance, the manners, and the voice of the other
person, and one is thinking about what is being said
and what to say. The rules of the social game are
vitally important and the good conversationalist has
learned to be a master of this game. The slow-minded
person may never develop into a stimulating
conversationalist. this person's special talent is
different. In the better world of greater opportunity
for more persons, the culture in which diversity is
celebrated rather than denied, the many kinds of
different people will integrate more, sense more, and
appreciate more.
With these matters brought to our attention,
we can understand the serious limitations of many
successful persons. Many intelligent and capable
persons think so accurately and so fast, but their
perspective is very restricted. They tend to agree
with their peers because in each specialty the
discipline is the same and everyone in the same peer
group has mastered the same body of exceedingly
specialized knowledge. What may be hard for a truly
successful person to grasp is the narrow range of his
or her own specialized education, culture,
perceptions, and experience.
When a person's main pleasure is movement
and sensation, he or she moves through the world in
joy and this individual's perceptions are intense,
subtle, and sometimes profound. But the kinesthetic
person may never remain in one place long enough for
anyone to really get to know him or her. Furthermore,
because of a lifelong deficit in language and
communication skills, this person's writings may never
express even one hundredth of the abundant joy and
perceptiveness that is available to people.
John lets his body lead him to new places
and to new ideas. As he writes the movements in his
hands stimulate his mind to think of things he's never
thought of before. Furthermore, the man's perceptions
stretch far beyond his communications, and the
specialists can't always follow his ideas because some
of them come from subject fields they've not yet
explored.
What virtue makes up for John's slowness of
verbal wit? One virtue is that he can help you notice
some things you've not noticed before. John can help
you see persons, ideas, and things from different
perspectives. If you're stumped by a difficult
problem, he may provide you with some valuable
assistance. He's helped some other persons solve a
problem they couldn't solve by themselves.
How does John get you to notice more? How
does he help you appreciate and understand more? For
one thing, you have to slow down to interact
successfully with John. Furthermore, there's a lot
more being communicated in the world besides speech.
In fact, everything you see and hear is a
communication. The other senses bring you
communications as well. But when you are mainly
paying attention to other people, and to what is being
said, your attention is rather restricted.
Nevertheless, your own body is communicating
to you all the time in ways which are non-verbal. You
can learn to take note of subtle body movements which
aren't gestures associated with speech. When you work
with John you will see him move his body in subtle
ways and this helps him see a thing from a different
angle and obtain new insights.
John shows you how body movement can be used
to help a person get new ideas. John remains silent
for awhile and lets his body move freely in response
to what is in the environment. You might not know how
to do this, though, because from an early age you
concentrated on listening to other people and joining
in the fast-paced conversation. So don't be impatient
with yourself if you don't understand this lesson
right away. You didn't learn to talk or to read in a
single day.
John L. Waters
johnlwaters@yahoo.com
The information on this page represents that of John Waters and not
necessarily that of Humboldt State University. John Waters takes full
responsibility for the information presented.
This page is maintained by: John Waters