More Thoughts on the Great Tara Westover
I had a bit of an epiphany a few moments ago. I am sitting on my couch, listening to the transcendent music of Mozart, my favorite composer (the greatest who has ever lived, by the way). I am drinking a few beers, a luxury in my post-60-year-old existence. I stopped drinking for a long time, but I genuinely love beer. My consumption never caused any problems, so I have decided to have a few when the mood strikes me. It struck me tonight.
I found myself reading the comments of an English professor regarding a paper a person wrote for his class. The particulars aren’t necessary. I do not have the energy or the inclination to explore that particular bunny hole; I’ll let it be. This professor’s comments were especially salient, considering his history as a soldier in the military. He was not a soldier in service to the United States; he was required to fight for the South African government in their quest to crush the forces fighting against apartheid. Imagine the gravity of that statement for a moment and then consider how that might affect a young man who knew that apartheid was fundamentally wrong. Then think of yourself in his position; imagine being forced to kill people because of the color of their skin. I can’t imagine the pain such a person must keep bottled up.
It is too early to get to my thesis statement, my reason for writing this post. I am a master at burying the lede, something that any young student should ignore. Your writing teacher will put the smackdown on you if your point is buried in paragraph seventeen. You can only do such things when you have proven that you understand the rules. Only then (when the rules are ingrained) are you allowed to break them.
I am not usually big on giving advice, especially of the unsolicited variety. In this case, I will make an exception. Read Tara Westover’s Educated. Now. Borrow it from your local library, buy it from a bookstore, or, if you must, steal it. Please, just get your hands on it. After you read it, you will know why.
Next comes my lovely niece Haley, the tennis player who occasionally shows up on my blog. Haley had a tennis racquet in her hand as soon as she could walk. I remember the first ball she hit back to me. I was standing in front of her with one of those soft foam balls made for children. Her dad told her to hit the ball back at me and hit me in the chest. I tossed her the ball, which came back right between my pecs. She joined me in a dance in the parking lot of a junior high school near my house. Then I tossed it again and again and again and again with the same result.
Any athlete or coach can tell you about the importance of muscle memory. If the muscles are adequately trained, interesting things happen. When movements are repeated with precision, the athlete does not have to think about what they are doing. The physical forces take over automatically. The muscles have been trained to know what to do without conscious intervention. You might find this hard to understand if you have never been an athlete. I know you can appreciate it because it works the same way for things you might have been taught when you were young.
When a person takes their first tennis lesson, there is a good chance that they have to unlearn all that they thought was true about how to hit a backhand, forehand, volley, or serve. Anyone is much better off taking lessons when they begin playing so that they learn the correct form from the start. If they do that, they do not have to unlearn all the stuff being done when they start playing. It provides a serious advantage to taking lessons from the start. And, trust me, the same applies to the mental game of any participant.
Personally, I had to unlearn a bunch of crap I was taught by numerous hillbillies throughout my younger years. This infinitely complicates the whole process. When presented with new information, it first must be processed in terms of the nonsense already processed. The point is the hillbilly “wisdom” must be unlearned before the new data can be processed. Understand how vital that last sentence is. If you were not inundated with hillbilly nonsense, then you can not possibly understand the importance of that statement. And that brings us to Tara Westover.
Westover was born into a family of hillbillies. These were the deluxe versions of hillbilly, not the regular kind of ignorant sons and daughters of the soil. They were special. The fact that she could unlearn all they taught her is extraordinary. After that, the rest was relatively easy due to her natural brilliance and innate compulsion to work hard. I really admire her. I would offer to take her for a taco if I were younger. Sadly, I will wave from a distance and then get on with my day.
She managed to unlearn all the nonsense her parents taught her. That is harder than reprogramming muscles to hit a tennis ball properly. And trust me, that can be a thing. Muscle memory is real, as is the reliance on the things we are taught as youngsters. Those memories, as nonsensical as they might be, have a mighty tug. They all act in unison to keep a person mired in ignorance. That is how things work in Hillbilly Land. I made it out; I broke free. Westover had a more challenging upbringing than me. I am proud of her, and I wish her well. A doctorate from Cambridge University is just the beginning of her story. She is an exceptional example of a human being, and I will follow her career with great interest.
There you have it. This story is about the difficulties of unlearning all the nonsense a young hillbilly learns as they set out in the world. Most, unfortunately, are never exposed to other ways of thinking. They live out their lives in an uninteresting fashion and die a normal death. Much to the dismay of Socrates (a figure they have never heard of), they do not examine their lives or begin comprehending the implications of such an act. This much I know, I don’t feel sorry for such people, and I try not to pay any attention to the nonsense they continually spew. I simply am glad that I am not them.
