Fail better

[jethrien]

I'm not sure that humans are ever more persistent than when we're learning to walk. Professional musicians who practice for hours on end could take a lesson from infants. ARR has essentially spent the last three days practicing standing up and sitting back down. Over. And over. And over. When he gets tired or bored, he crawls a few feet and starts again with a new object to hang on to. The baby gate. The futon. The outside of the exersaucer. His stroller. The chairs. The walls. The bookshelves. My pants. Daddy's leg hair. The world used to be divided into Things That Will Fit In My Mouth and Things That I Can't Figure Out How To Get Into My Mouth. Now, that second category has blossomed into new usefulness. Most things he can't figure out how to get into his mouth are now Things That Help Me Stand. Except for the marvelous items (the walker, the exersaucer, the parents) which are Both.

And he keeps falling. Sometimes just onto his butt. Sometimes he catches himself. Four or five times a day, he manages to fall fast enough or just out of my reach and smacks his head on something. (He has a lovely bruise on his forehead. I swear, I was right there. I caught him before he hit the ground...but not before his head whacked the railing.) He isn't usually moving with enough speed to seriously injure himself (he's not very tall, there's not much time for acceleration or mass for momentum). But it still hurts, and startles him, and is immensely frustrating. So, understandably, he wails. And then tries again. Sometimes even while wailing.

How many of us fail badly enough to burst into hysterical tears multiple times a day...and still keep trying? How many of us would be willing to devote the majority of our waking hours to obsessively practicing a single rote activity? I think learning to walk might be the hardest thing any of us has ever done. If I could apply a tenth of the determination this kid displays on an hourly basis, I think I could do anything. The level of drive evolution has instilled is staggering. Somehow, we all have this, and somehow we all lose it. Nothing is ever as important again.

Comments

[ecmyers.livejournal.com]

Somehow, we all have this, and somehow we all lose it. Nothing is ever as important again.

This Nintendo player begs to differ.

[mithras03.livejournal.com]

Maybe it has to do with memory too? I mean, we can't actually test this, but how much of the hysterical crying might ARR remember when trying and trying and trying? Comes with the territory of being a baby, right? I certainly don't remember learning how to walk, or my efforts to do so (I feel like we had a conversation at some point about how babies' memories work and why we can never remember what it was like to be a baby....)

[jethrien.livejournal.com]

Could be. He certainly has a very limited attention span. He remembers things--there are behaviors he definitely has learned to associate with specific events and places. But it doesn't take much to distract him.