The nature of the Self, in the mind of a child.

Tiarnan is rather philosophical for a six year old. Today, he was having a serious little chat with his mother, when he suddenly asked, with the utmost intensity:

“Who is in control of me?”

His mother, Syahidah, focussed on him, somewhat startled at the question.

“Is it me, me, or is it my brain?”, he continued, drawing a distinction that seemed a little mystifying to her.

“Who do you think is in control of you?”, she prompted, acceptingly.

“Just me.”, he said, simply. “...and God, sometimes. God controls the whole world – but I am in control of me!”

He seemed happy with that conclusion.

Syahidah was quite happy, too, to have heard him think so. Listening to Tiarnan is rather refreshing. He ponders the world, asking questions of matters, that adults have come to overlook, or take for granted. He then reflects on them, deeply, answering them from within the context of his experience – yet, meaningfully, nevertheless. Tiarnan is a little philosopher and, in many ways, is proving to be a deep thinker, prone to pondering mysteries and cracking the enigmas of life. It is notable that the questions that concern him most could all be lumped under the heading: “The Meaning of Life”...for its nature and context are his primary interests. He really wants to understand what it means to be alive. He doesn’t just accept that he is alive and go from there...he is really questioning what life is and what it means to experience the living state. Yet, he is only six years old and has never read any philosophical or religious work of any kind. He is thinking for himself, afresh.

All of this leads me to wonder whether, as an adult, he might become a writer, who ponders deep questions and answers them for his readers. If so, that would be an altogether familiar outcome, for those who are privy to my writings of yesteryear (hint: not the general public, as yet).

Intellectually, Tiarnan has many a likeness to my own preoccupations – though his are in juvenescent form. That doesn’t disguise the fact, though, that he seems driven by the same motivations to question, understand and explain his world. Once again, I marvel at how much genetic influences appear to play in the formation of our minds, our characters and our interests.

I look forward to Tiarnan’s many interesting questions and ponderings, in the future.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.) 

Seeing the world with chemical eyes.

At unexpected times, I am reminded that Ainan sees the world in a rather different way, to most young boys. He sees the world with chemical eyes.

A few weeks ago, I was out with Ainan. Now, anyone who knows Malaysia will know that there are open drains beside the roads, perhaps to offset the chance of floods. We had just come out of a Starbucks onto a quiet roadway, that ran along the shops. At the outer edge of the little road, was a wall. We stepped up onto the wall. Immediately beyond it, was a ditch all along the road, that acted a drain. Beyond that, was the main road proper, that we wanted to get to, in search of a taxi.

So, we stepped up onto the wall and jumped across the ditch, down onto the side of the main road beyond.

Ainan said nothing.

We spent some ten minutes trying to flag down a taxi – and being ignored by the very few which passed by.

“Let’s go back to Starbucks and call a cab from there.”, I suggested to Ainan.

So, we walked across the road, to the drainage ditch. With an effortful stretch, Ainan stretched his leg across the ditch and stepped up onto the wall.

Standing on the top of the wall, he remarked: “That was an endothermic reaction.”

He looked down at me. “...and when we came out it was...”

“...an exothermic reaction!”, I said filling in.

He had a point. To return the way we had come and go up to the wall, from down beside the drainage ditch, required an input of energy...hence endothermic. To come down off the wall, one only had to use gravity to do so...so, in a sense, energy came out, from one...an exothermic reaction.

I thought it was very telling of the way he sees the world that he should notice a physical and visual analogy to endothermic and exothermic reactions, whilst out walking around town.

Not for the first time, I was moved to reflect that children of his own age, would not grasp his thoughts, should he ever choose to express them, unfiltered, to them. Of course, he never really did that. With children his own age, he would select his utterances very carefully and never really reveal what he was truly thinking. He would decide to talk about something else, something more readily understood, than to actually make the remarks that came, unbidden, to mind.

For me, I was happy to have a glimpse of the way he interprets the world, as we crossed the ditch. He allowed me to see, for a moment, how he perceives, analyzes and understands the world. Of course, he did so, because he knew that I would understand his reference. Had I been another child, he would have walked in silence.

This incident is a simple example of his chemical perception. Often it is not so simple. Sometimes, I really have to reflect on what he has said, carefully, so elusive is it. At such times, I do wonder how many people he shall really be able to connect with, fully, in his lifetime. Such people would have to be quite unusual in their own way, I think. I do hope he manages to gather around him enough such people to feel properly connected to the world. In the meantime, I shall be there for him, when he chooses to speak his mind. I hope it is enough, for now.

Posted by Valentine Cawley

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page.

To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 5, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here:http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at:http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is athttp://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

Why some never learn.

I saw something interesting at the ICSSH 2011 conference in Singapore.

It was at the end of the day, which had been filled with lectures of many academics. We had been having a spirited discussion of one lecturer’s work, in a rather informal way, since few of us were left. A fairly elderly man was sitting at the back, observing us. Suddenly, he piped up: “Hello...”, he began, a little unsure of himself.

“Yes.” We said, some with their tongues, others with their eyes.

“If you have time, do you think you can listen to my work?”

It was late and, to be frank, most of us wanted to go home, but we were polite with our fellow academic.

“I gave two presentations...but no-one said anything.”, he explained, a little mystified, “I just wondered if you could give me some feedback.”

The more outspoken of us, an academic from Brazil, nodded. “Five minutes...I am running late.”
So it was that we listened to his presentation.

It was a strange lecture. It had a lot of words, but seemed to have little meaning. What he was trying to do seemed elusive and not in any way clearly attained by what he presented. There was, perhaps, a decent idea in there somewhere, but he had not expressed it clearly enough.

What was interesting was the way he reacted to feedback. The Brazilian academic was direct, but polite enough. He pointed out that it wasn’t clear what was meant by “work habits”, because the type of work hadn’t been defined. (The lecture was aspiring to improve work habits).

Our academic friend fairly blew up. He defended his existing position and presentation vigorously. It was, in fact, quite funny...because he had invited feedback, but then refused to accept its validity when it came.

I found myself winking at a fellow colleague, as we watched the exchange with some amusement.
In about ten minutes of discussion, instead of listening to the feedback he was receiving, he defended everything about the way he had done things. Finally, he broke away from the Brazilian and turned to me and asked me what I thought. “I agree with him. You have written a lot of words, but it is not clear what you mean. It would be better to use short sentences, and perhaps some graphics to present your ideas.”

He went very quiet then and had nothing to say in return. He just didn’t know what to do when confronted not with one person pointing to problems in his presentation, but two. I think, in asking me, he had hoped for a different answer. He had been seeking confirmation of his own view, so that he might dismiss the first critic. I gave him no such ammunition. Perhaps, he was tired to argue in his own defence. He didn’t say anything more, so I don’t know if he finally accepted the feedback. I only know that he no longer had the spirit to defend himself further.

I found the whole exchange illuminating. Quite clearly, he was a man who hadn’t really been listening to the feedback he had received in his life, about his presentation style. Either that, or no-one had had the heart to tell him, that his work just didn’t work. I felt that he was stuck in a position of defending his work against all criticism, instead of really seeing it for what it was, and deciding to work on its flaws, to the betterment of all future work. He hadn’t yet reached a true understanding of his own output – largely, I think, because he refused to accept the validity of the viewpoints of others, if they were critical. He was being selective. I am sure that he would accept and believe any positive comment about his work. Indeed, something in him seemed to expect it. Yet, the outraged way in which he defended the way he had done things, was not promising. He was strongly emotionally attached to his erroneous approach. He just couldn’t let himself see that what he was doing was ineffective.

To my mind, he was a man who couldn’t learn to see himself truly. He had a self-image and an image of his work, that pleased him. However, they were not real. Everyone else looking at the same work, would disagree with him. In a way, I suppose it could be said that he was deluded about himself and his work. He saw effectiveness, where others saw emptiness and even folly. Yet, his own personal beliefs about himself and his work, were so essential to him, that he could not let them be corrected by any external voice – no matter how gentle (as mine was...I could have been much more blunt about work that was, basically, rubbish.)

In a way, the saddest thing about this was his age. He must have been in his late fifties at least – yet still he had not learnt to see himself or his work, truly. He had lived a life of personal delusion on the issue of quality of output, until the very day we had met him – or at least, it seemed so, from his behaviour.

I hope he reflected on what he had been told. I hope he went away, and sat down with his paper and began to draft it again. I hope he learnt something from our feedback. Yet, I can’t help but feel that he is likely not to have done so.

The question is: is it better to live with a personal delusion like his, about work that is really poor – or is it better to be able to see its flaws and then strive to improve them? I suppose it all depends on the strength of one’s ego. If one is strong enough, the truth is better to be confronted. However, if one is weak, perhaps mentally vulnerable, maybe the delusion is actually healthier and safer.

I don’t know the man in question well enough, but I feel, perhaps, that he might not be strong enough to face the truth of his work. Perhaps that is why he has done so for so long.

Even if he didn’t learn anything by our meeting, I did – and that is worthwhile in itself. To my mind, he provides a strong example of a man whose self-image is very different from his externally observed reality. So, funnily enough, in trying to teach him something, perhaps I taught myself something instead. At least, one of us was learning.

NOTE: It is possible that the man's presentation was a poor reflection of his actual paper. He may not have been good at summarizing his thoughts. It would have been his actual paper that had been submitted to and accepted by the conference. It could be that that work was adequate and interesting, but that the presentation of it was neither. I would have to do further checking to find out.

(If you would like to support my continued writing of this blog and my ongoing campaign to raise awareness about giftedness and all issues pertaining to it, please donate, by clicking on the gold button to the left of the page. To read about my fundraising campaign, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-in-support-of-my.html and here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/01/fundraising-drive-first-donation.html

If you would like to read any of our scientific research papers, there are links to some of them, here: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2011/02/research-papers-by-valentine-cawley-and.html

If you would like to see an online summary of my academic achievements to date, please go here: http://www.getcited.org/mbrz/11136175

To learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 7 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

There is a review of my blog, on the respected The Kindle Report here: http://thekindlereport.blogspot.com/2010/09/boy-who-knew-too-much-child-prodigy.html

Please have a read, if you would like a critic's view of this blog. Thanks.

You can get my blog on your Kindle, for easy reading, wherever you are, by going to: http://www.amazon.com/Boy-Who-Knew-Too-Much/dp/B0042P5LEE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1284603792&sr=8-1

Please let all your fellow Kindlers know about my blog availability - and if you know my blog well enough, please be so kind as to write a thoughtful review of what you like about it. Thanks.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/

Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/

Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)

Tiarnan's on Father's Day.

This morning, my youngest son, Tiarnan, four, and his mother were having a little chat about what to do for Father's Day.

Syahidah looked into Tiarnan's engaging eyes and asked: "Would you like to go and see a film with Daddy? What film would you like to see?"

"That's lame, mummy.", Tiarnan began, disappointed somewhat in her suggestion.

Syahidah was rather surprised at this.

"It's Daddy's day. Daddy should see a film for Daddy, not for me."

Her surprise changed into something even more surprising: she was impressed. Tiarnan had actually stepped out of his own world, into Daddy's and seen that, to Daddy, a film Tiarnan might choose, might not be ideal. He was trying to view the world from his father's perspective, and deciding that his mummy's proposal just wouldn't be what Daddy really wanted.

I was touched, too, when I heard this tale retold. You see, in a way, Tiarnan gave me a special gift, when he turned down his mother's idea. He showed me that he understood Daddy's world. He told me that he was able to put aside his own needs and desires and try to work out what mine might be. I thought his response curiously mature for such a little boy.

Thank you, Tiarnan, for your insight - and for caring about what Daddy might really want. That made my Father's Day, in an unexpected way. Thanks, too, to Ainan, Fintan and Syahidah, for a heartwarming day.

Happy Father's Day, all.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, 10, or his gifted brothers, Fintan, 6 and Tiarnan, 4, this month, please go to:
http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html

I also write of gifted education, child prodigy, child genius, adult genius, savant, megasavant, HELP University College, the Irish, the Malays, Singapore, Malaysia, IQ, intelligence and creativity.

My Internet Movie Database listing is at: http://imdb.com/name/nm3438598/
Ainan's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3305973/
Syahidah's IMDB listing is at http://imdb.com/name/nm3463926/

Our editing, proofreading and copywriting company, Genghis Can, is at http://www.genghiscan.com/

This blog is copyright Valentine Cawley. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited. Use only with permission. Thank you.)