in thoughts...

I don't know if I'm the only idiot who has this experience, but I'll just like to share it, because it's made me think a bit about life...

I'll look up a word in the dictionary, say, intrinsic. So I'll flip to a page that's got words starting with "in" and has yet to reach "intr" or something... then I'll run my finger down the list till I find the word... The thing is, more likely than not, I'll miss the word... Overshoot... go right past THE word I'm looking for... this has happened more than once or twice... Well, of course if I concentrate real hard, I'll probably not miss the word... so maybe it's a thing about attention and concentration...

Another example... My desk is often in quite a mess until I find a nice afternoon to try to clear it up... Thereafter, it'll look like part of a civilised human's study environment for about 2 weeks max, before things start piling up again... So, I'll be trying to find a big object, like my super big stapler or scissors, it'll be staring at me straight in the face, and I'll miss it... I'll be like, "I know it's here, I put it here, I left it here, WHO TOOK IT?!" and then suddenly, I repeat, SUDDENLY, I'll see IT... Like after 10 minutes of searching in a confined space... You'd think I'd spot it faster, but NO...

But I just thought... Maybe I'm like this in real life... Maybe I'm looking so hard for happiness, deep friendship, success, satisfaction, that I do not realise that I already have them, or that I could just reach out and grab them before they pass me by...

Another somewhat related thought... I was marking my pri 3 tuition kid's Primary English homework... those who've mugged for PSLE would probably have used this book too.. haha... I still remember my tattered, hand-me-down one, used by my sister and brother... Anyway... you know how they like to drill you by having one whole exercise of similar answers... Like asking you to fill in "shall" or "will"... So it goes, they "will", we "shall", I "shall" and blah blah... that particular exercise I was marking, all the answers were to be "shall"... I kept looking at the word, marking, marking, then suddenly I thought, "Hey is this the correct spelling or not? Why is it spelt this way?" And it seemed that for a moment, I couldn't "recognize" the word "shall"... which is ridiculous... I mean, I've seen this word like a million times maybe, throughout my life... And a few seconds ago my brain was processing the thought that if I see the letters, S-H-A-L-L, it makes up "shall", which is the right answer, put a tick beside it... But just for that moment, it didn't register in my head as "shall"... Was it because I was so used to seeing that word (for that couple of minutes) that I numbed myself to it and thus failed to recognize it?

That has happened when I'm looking up the dictionary too... I'll be looking for the word baboon, for instance, I'll pass the word "baby" and it'll totally not register as the sweet innocent crying-like-nobody's-business young form of humans... Did I miss that word because it is not what I'm looking for?

So.... Am I not recognizing the happiness, deep friendship, success and satisfaction that's already in my life? Did I miss anything else that's good just because at this point I'm not specifically looking for it?

Hmmm, maybe the above behavior can be explained by some cognitive psychology theories.. or maybe not... Anyone wanna use me as a case study then? Titled "The Moron who can't locate words in dictionaries - The Mystery"

haha...