(Scroll right to the end of this post if you want to check out the quiz first)
I usually TRY not to get all philosophical when it comes to trading - coz whenever I do, a certain SOMEONE (yes, D, that's you) makes fun of me. Well, he got his last laugh again yesterday, but that's ok, coz I got my "Ah-Ha" moment!
Background
Seabloke's 5-year-old twins were at mine yesterday, and had nothing much to play with (except my cats - but they took cover way before the girls could get to them- and D, who was beat and had fallen into a deep slumber). At wit's end, I brought out the only "toy" I had - my Wii games - hoping that Twins would be impressed enough to want to visit me again.
I got more than I asked for - AS ALWAYS. Twins beat me hands down in the only game on the list that I've NEVER played: Bowling. These girls are PROS - they kept getting strikes, quite clearly without much effort. Me, I had to be shown how to use the controls! When the simple demo didn't work (I just couldn't time the release of the ball), Twins grabbed my hand to keep my finger on the button, and when I was supposed to release it, they gave me a verbal command to let go. It worked. But once left on my own (without their hands on mine), I couldn't send the ball out. Twins were pretty pitiless after that. They began to laugh hysterically each time I failed to get the ball out, coz they were hitting double, triple, quadriple strikes!
The younger one declared that she was going to tell mummy about it.
"Oh yes you should definitely tell her how well you played! She'll be so proud! But she doesn't have to know that I suck, agreed?"
"I'm telling mummy you suck!! Hahahahahahaha!!!!"
Please, let no one tell me, EVER, that kids are innocuous. Face it, we are all born evil. Kindness is learned - in BABY STEPS.
When Seabloke came to collect twins, I told her what happened, gave her 3 minutes to finish laughing, and asked her where twins learn to bowl like this.
She said they were naturals. She still couldn't figure out how they could get a strike the first time they played the game and go on to consistently hit strikes and spares, when she could barely keep the ball from falling into the gutter.
And then they left. Leaving me feeling somewhat disturbed. Unsolved mysteries always stay with me for a while.
Since D was still in dreamland, I didn't want to do any work on my computer (the typing wakes him up easily). So I went back to explore that annoying bowling game. Took me a while to finally suceed at releasing the ball. I started bowling over 6 to 7 pins in the first shots, and noticed that I kept missing those on the left.
It was a strange intuition that got me to shift my starting position from the centre (which was the default position, and from where twins send their balls) to the EXTREME left. By extreme, I mean like just inches away from the gutter. I started knocking down more pins. But still missing pins on the left, and, of course, still no strike.
Then I remembered how when I was learning to play tennis, that I was taught to first find my pivot, and then after that it's always just about FOCUSING ON THE BALL.
So I forced my eyes and brain to shift their attention from the pins to the ball. It was a challenge. What happened was that the more I didn't want to be distracted, the more readily distracted I became. It got to the point where I was actually distracted by the irritating characters "playing" on the adjacent lanes!!!(???).
Stubborn as hell, I continued to play until I could finally block out everything else except the ball.
I began to be able to keep my eyes on the ball, tracking it as it rolled off my hand onto the lane...And that was when I noticed for the first time its veering off the middle of the lane to the RIGHT just before it hit the pins.
I repeated the drill over and over, and each time, the ball would veer off to the right, hit the middle pin, and I would get my full strike! I was getting 4 strikes in a row consistently after that. Until fatigue set in, that is. And when Alberto started asking for dinner to be served.
So I took a short break, and went back to the game. And I started getting my strikes again. The spares were great too.
I felt so ready to take on Twins next Saturday.
Seabloke, I suggest you start shopping around for a new toy, coz once I beat them, they won't want to bowl again! >:-)
Now, what I had really wanted to talk about, or document rather, was that "Ah-ha" moment that I mentioned right at the beginning of this post....
But, I'm not quite done with bowling and Twins yet.
Yes I'm evil.
It runs in the family.
So, it was when I finally succeeded in replicating Twin's results that it dawned on me that the girls's interest weren't in the pins!
Sure they LOVE getting strikes, but they weren't WORKING for or towards that.
They were just PLAYING (which is about the only thing that kids love anyway, I reckon/remember). Strikes were simply a by-product ie. they were not their GOAL to begin with.
They just wanted to play, and all they care about was THE BALL!
Totally explains why the elder one insisted on a PINK ball (and I remember that only coz I was so afraid that she was going to cry when I simply didn't know how to change the ball from blue to pink!). She cared about the color of the ball coz the ball was the only thing she was looking at, and it wasn't in her favorite color!
And the reason I couldn't understand at first why the color of the ball even matter is this: all I was looking at were the pins, and all I cared about was the number of pins that I was going to knock down! When it comes to playing a serious game, I sure was not as serious as Twins.
There's another thing about the girls that still stumps me, and it's how the older twin was able to miss exactly the same pins that I missed when she played after me - 4 consecutive times!! Seabloke witnessed it - she stayed to watch us play for a while before she took the girls home. When V gave that mischievious grin, Seabloke and I looked at each other for a few seconds, then shrugged our shoulders as if to say "well, it's not like we're not used to being spooked". But seriously, I'm spooked.
The only logical explanation I can come up with is that kids' minds are probably a lot more creative, a lot less cluttered than those of adults. They can visualize bowling over all the pins and make it happen by virtue of the fact that they haven't learned how to doubt themselves. Self-doubt and cynicism are definitely products of socialization. As we grow up, we somehow lose the ability to imagine possibilities (sure explains why visionaries are few and far between).
Life experiences have a way of impeding our progress - unless we are aware of how they're impacting us in terms of how we view life in general, how we make life's decisions - both big and small - and of the angle we take when confronted by problems and challenges.
I've always liked this story I read in a book I picked up many years ago. Extracted from the book "Brain Dancing" by Dilip Mukerjea:
Some years ago, a heavily laden truck became lodged under an overpass. For several hours, police had been endeavouring to get it unstruck. The crowd that had gathered offered all sorts of suggestions. "Saw off the top of the truck," one old man bellowed, only half-joking. "The bridge will have to be dismantled," said another. "That bay in there's too tight."
Naturally, these solutions did not contain a feasible solution. But alternatives were not forthcoming and the situation appeared to be hopeless.
Eventually, having witnessed the circus for some time, a little boy stepped forward with his idea. "Why don't you let the air out of the tyres?" he asked.
Eureka! It was obvious! But it needed a childlike attitude to realize the obvious. By not getting stuck at the top end of the truck, the mind was free to look at the opposite end, where in fact, the solution lay awaiting.
Children - we have so much to learn from them.
The Simple Quiz for 5-6 Year Olds That The Financial Controller Couldn't Solve
A very good friend of D's had dinner with us a couple of years back while he was here for a business conference. I was my usual quiet self, my mind occupied with something else, giving occasional nods just to give the impression that I was actually interested in the conversation that was going on. And then, the friend shared something which REALLY caught my interest. He told us about this quiz that was given to pre-elementary school kids to qualify them for entry into a very prestigious school in HK.
Many of these children were able to solve the "problem" within minutes. One of them went home to challenge his dad on the quiz. The father, a highly educated man I guess, couldn't figure it out. Disturbed, he took the quiz to his office to see if he was the only adult who couldn't solve a kid's problem. All those who were college graduates couldn't solve it. Those with finance and mathematics background were particularly alarmed. They worked on the quiz for DAYS before giving up. They were dumbfounded when given the answer. It was so simple it absolutely takes a child's eyes to SEE the clue.
Just for the fun of it - yes I'm in the mood for fun these days - I'm going to leave the quiz here for anyone who wants to take a shot at solving it. I'm only giving 4 lines for now - but will give more until someone gets it. If anyone's able to give me the line that follows the last one that's provided below, she/he wins (The prize: An automatic ego-booster) :
12
1112
3112
132112
