Looking Down

"Ride, Rade, Was ist Das, Ist Kein Fuchs und ist Kein Has, Was ist Das?"

Translated into English:  Riddle, riddle, what is it, it is not a fox nor a rabbit, what is it?  Some of the most brilliant people cannot understand computers since they were not brought up in the computer age.  They attempt to speak of it but are ridiculed by their modern counterparts.

There is no one who is perfect in every way, and knows everything.  Each person has experiences, feelings, education, and acquaintances that may converge or diverge from those of another.  Differences arise based on who teaches a child, their beliefs, how and when they have in turn been taught, and what religion or lack of religion they experienced.  Much depends on who a person’s parents, trainers, or friends are or were.  Foster children are very different than children who were parented by their own mother and father.  People learn, of course, from their own experiences.  They are influenced by what they see and feel, and we must know the background of a person to be able to better understand who and what he has learned and experienced.  If he doesn’t know what we know, that does not make him an idiot; he merely has a different background than ours.

No reasonable person would call Albert Einstein a fool.  Yet Einstein’s life extended into the early computer age, but it is unlikely he ever utilized a computer, or knew how.  He was able to construct the most difficult theories without getting up from his chair, and without experiments.

Each of us learns what we can.  Remember Einstein the next time you are tempted to consider someone an ignoramus.

 Lehitraot.

 Dr. Ursula A. Falk is a psychotherapist in private practice and the author of several books and articles, including The American Drug Culture (with Dr. Thomas S. Weinberg & Dr. Gerhard Falk, 2018).

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