All About Peter

When Peter worked at a place in the Northwest teaching computer hardware and server systems about 8-something years ago, he had a co-worker he talked about sometimes.

This co-worker was not very informed on the subject, according to Peter, but at the same time was very cock-sure about his knowledge, waving his hands and mumbling if push came to shove about some topic. (Peter felt badly for the students assigned to this co-worker.)

What I remembered recently about this was what Peter told me once; when he took this co-worker teacher aside and explained something to him that he obviously was misinformed about before Peter’s intervention, this co-worker would invariably end the explanation with “I knew that”, seemingly by reflex, and this happened a number of times.

Peter’s comments about this were twofold.

First, Peter felt dissed that this fellow obviously did NOT know the topic, and after Peter showed him, he should have thanked Peter.

Second, according to Peter, this fellow was teaching his own subconcious mind to reject any new thoughtforms because he “already knew it”, so his mind would then NOT make the pathways permanent, rejecting the new information for long-term storage. He was, according to Peter, beyond learning anything new!

I’m sure I used that phrase myself occasionally, BEFORE Peter told me that story.

Since that time, if the phrase was ever about to pass my lips, this story came to mind, and I would change what I was about to say.

I decided that I needed all the learning I can get!

Thanks, Peter! (And Happy 23rd!)