Learning to be Human

I was your classic bookworm growing up. Most of my free time was spent nose inside of some book. I had a teacher in about the 4th grade who challenged me to see how much of the World Book Encyclopedia I could get through whenever I was done with my other classwork. I made it through by year’s end; probably with time to spare.

This was one of the few sources of friction between my parents. My Dad would often push me to set my latest book aside and connect with the actual world. My mother gave me free rein. I once asked her why she took my side in this struggle. She said,

You were compelled to read. I didn’t know what was driving you but I could see that it was something you had to do. I decided it was more important to let you follow your own curiosity than try to tell you what you ought to be doing.

Depending on what you choose to read, you can learn a lot about the wider world. I gobbled up science fiction and science related non-fiction.

This is not a vein to mine if your goal is a deeper understanding of other people and human relations. The characters in most classic science fiction were pretty wooden. Add a daily 45-minute commute to an all-boys high school and my exposure to real people in real settings was constrained.

By the time I got to college I was behind. In catch-up mode and unaware that I was. In retrospect, I think there were a handful of people who took me on as a development project. Oblivious as I was, I was nudge-able. And nudged over time into something resembling a functional human being.

So, thanks to all those nudgers. You know who you were, even if I didn’t.