Following on from my previous thought, I ponder on why I am happier to learn complex procedures with my body and mind over those requiring only my mind. When for example I practice a difficult sequence on the piano, the improvement of my performance is not only something I appreciate aesthetically, but also physically. The sensation of growing bodily ease is a profoundly satisfying feeling. Although I may feel a sense of achievement with a wholly mental task, understanding is confined to the abstract.
Procedural memory occurs when repeating a complex chain of activities until it becomes automatic and without conscious awareness of the experience, for example learning a musical instrument or playing a racket sport which requires delayed gratification and includes frequent failure and frustration.
Although I enjoy physical procedural learning, I have an intense dislike of following or learning a series of mental actions that must be carried out in a certain order or manner. My body works best with mind.
When I was a child in bed and about to sleep I would think of someone close I might loose. I would not stop until I felt my sadness real with silent tears. It took many years to know this search for comfort was how I coped with the separation of my mother and father, and them from me. I was fostered at three. My surrogate mother died when I was fourteen, my mother at nineteen, and my father three years later. Despite my loss I knew love, given and received. My music art and words become my silent tears.
William Shakespeare
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Think This Today is the creation of Mike de Sousa, an artist, writer, and composer.