Tuesday, August 28, 2018

"Got It!"

I begin with, among many available options, three ways a person can learn things.

Observation:

“I know seven people who ate those mushrooms and died.  I am not touching those mushrooms.”

Personal Experience:

I crashed two cars on the first day I bought them, showing them off to people I was trying to impress.  What I learned was, being unable to control my proclivity to impress, I would show off my new cars only after they were parked.

Incorporated Wisdom:

“The consolation of imaginary things is not imaginary consolation.”

Seemingly true, although how that works – the magician enchanted by their own trick – is seductively shrouded in mystery.

Okay, that’s three.

I now add a fourth avenue of illuminating awareness. 

You can learn things from a joke.

If it is the right kind of joke.  (You will learn nothing from comedian Gallagher, slamming a watermelon with a sledgehammer, except “Don’t sit near the front.”)  (An old reference?  Tell that to folks with permanent watermelon stains on their sports jackets.)

A recent example of what I am talking about…

I have recently told the story of my fellow “student” at Oxford fixing my suddenly defective cellphone – the screen had turned milky, and I was unable to call out.  After a startlingly brief interval of educated tinkering, Fan returned my cellphone, now fully and healthfully operational.

I am relievedly thrilled by its functional recovery.  (My effusive “Thank you!” topped by an unplanned kiss on the hand.)

Only shortly thereafter did I notice that, subsequent to Fan’s heroic efforts, the twenty or so icons on the “Home Screen” – or whatever you call it – had been reduced in size, and were now smaller than they had previously been.  My reflexive – and juvenile – reaction was to gracelessly return the phone, asking, “Could you fix the icons?”

But I didn’t, an act requiring considerable restraint on my part, being, by nature or perhaps habit, a shockingly ungrateful individual.  (An illumination alsogleaned from personal experience.)

The reason I held back, I was consciously aware,

Was because of a joke.

A well-known joke. You may have heard it before – possibly even in this venue – its current reprise confirming the case that jokes can tangibly better your behavior.

Here’s the joke that kept me from putting Fan unnecessarily back to work.

The (comedian) Henny Youngman Version:

“A little Jewish Grandma is at the Florida coast with her little Jewish grandson.
The grandson is playing on the beach when a big wave comes and washes the kid out to sea. The lifeguards swim out, bring him back to shore, the paramedics work on him for a long time, pumping the water out, reviving him. They turn to the little Jewish Grandma and say, “We saved your grandson.”  The little Jewish Grandma says,

“He had a hat.”

Swear to Gosh, it was that joke that restrained me from demanding further repair work on my cellphone. I did not want to be, “He had a hat.”

Call it educational teamwork.

Henny Youngman,

Philosopher and teacher.

And me,

Student of comedy, and life.

Although if anyone knows how to make the icons bigger…

2 comments:

cjdahl60 said...

If you have an iPhone, go to Settings then Display & Brightness. Under this option you can adjust the display and the text size.

Rebecca said...

My family calls me for tech support. When I need tech support, after making myself completely crazy, I google my problem. Sometimes it takes multiple tries, days or weeks apart. But, more often than not, I not only find the solution to my problem, I find answers to other stuff at the same time - or, sometimes, instead of what I’m looking for, lol.

The thing is, I remember so well how useless search engines were for what seemed like so many years, I am amazed at how often and how well they can fix things that are making my life hell at any given moment. My sister, too, saved herself tons of money by finding solutions to the problems always cropping up on her decades old RV.

I would give you a link, but you didn’t specify what kind of phone you have, and the process varies. So, simply Google “how to change icon size on (phone model here), and some very simple instructions should pop up. You may not even have to click on a link, the whole instruction might just show on the results page.

Good luck, if you haven’t already fixed it!