I realized after purchasing a fancy stainless steel trash can to match my other stainless steel appliances of greater fame and utility, that the step-pedal pop-up lid mechanism has changed the fancy footwork of making omelettes and just about all other activities that take place in the kitchen. For instance, before, when there was simply a cheap plastic bin with no lid, I would throw garbage from just about anywhere in the kitchen into it, with pretty good accuracy, using the wall as a backboard if needed. This made for a little more mess, but saved time. Now I have the pedal to deal with, so all kitchen moves with trash drop-offs must incorporate steps to the trash bin, and then the pedal press. If you think about it, it’s a logistics nightmare, as difficult as left-handed layups. But today I realized, after maneuvering a perfect back-step from the sink to the bin in the perfect amount of steps including a smooth pivot at the end that put my foot right on the pedal, that there is no extent to what we can learn as humans, even past the optimum developmental years. I had mastered my new environment, and mastered it out of necessity because it challenged me daily. It was just a few years ago that I learned how to walk very fast down a hallway with a cup of coffee, not spilling any of it. Again, this took a while to figure out, but out of necessity the task was learned. I even seem to get marginally better at guitar though I pick the thing up at pretty random intervals. Self-organizing logic just never quits on us; it why we’re at the top of the food chain. So the moral is obvious: lets put those more important tasks in front of us daily and they will be learned and assimilated by routine before we can even begin to complain how impossible they are.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 30th, 2007 at 3:44 pm and is filed under musings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.