The other day we were walking down by the beach when one of the twins asked me if I was going to drink a bear.
That’s what I heard, anyway.
I was right confused.
After a short back and forth I realized that she was not asking if I was going to drink a large clawed mammal best known as one critter that ought not be messed with.
She was saying beer, not bear.
Which is a helpful difference to know in case you’ve ever messed up and tried to drink a bear.
In the vernacular of Alabama redneck-ese, “beer” sounds more like “burr”
“Bear” comes out more like “berr”.
There’s you a lesson in Southern, should you one day find yourself south of I-40.
Down here in Kiwi-land “bear” and “beer” can sound out near identical.
(Aside: If you ever want some great fun with your nearest Kiwi, ask them to say “deck hand”.)
My daughters speak with the Kiwi accent, though growing up with ‘Bama dialect in the household they are world-class experts at interpreting my meditations from the heartadixie.
That’s led me to believe that we don’t appreciate how important words are.
Not even the words… but how we understand the words we hear or read from other people.
Accents are a constant source of amusement for me, not least because they make it so easy to misunderstand somebody even when you speak the same language and hear words you know.
Communicating ideas to people depends on a common foundation. Me, who are a writer, has to struggle mightily to get a point across because I can’t assume a shared level of understanding.
No foundation, no communication.
The foundation isn’t just about memorizing the dictionary.
A person can know all the words and still fail to understand what they mean when somebody speaks to them.
To really get it takes experience. The kind of feeling that comes from doing, not thinking.
And by now, we’re not talking about words anymore. I’m talking about to approach any part of life, or any activity, that you want to master.
My game is about building as broad and strong a foundation as we can.
1- Find out what makes a difference
2- Do it
3- Stop doing everything else
Build your foundations with care and you solve many problems for the upper floors of the house.
Don’t be one of these goofs that spends 90% of their time on details that don’t matter and gives 10% to the levers that move the big rocks.
That’s all I got for ya today. If you want more, come on with it.
Matt Perryman