One of the areas of my education that is somewhat lacking is regarding vehicles. Last night when I was driving to the country [1], I could tell that the car was limping pretty badly, but I was not entirely clear why this was the case. So, this afternoon, I casually mentioned that something was wrong to my hosts, and so we decided to investigate matters. I had commented what someone else had said about the vehicle [2], and so it was decided that I should drive the car up on the ramp so that we could take a look at the car from underneath and see if anything could be determined about the car from that vantage point. After a couple of attempts, I was able to get the car squarely on the ramp, and then my host’s family, at least a couple of them, and I managed to look around the car and see what could be determined.

The news was not good. At first, we saw that the driver’s side brakes were worn down, so we knew something that had to be worked on. Then we looked underneath and saw something that was quite surprising indeed, as my driver’s side wheel was entirely missing its wheel bearing. What had looked at the start to be a fairly minor concern ended up being a much more serious matter. It is difficult to tell what sort of repercussion that will have. At least my friends are taking a look at the vehicle and my car is being taken care of. I wonder to what extent my own lack of knowledge about key areas regarding vehicles and their care and maintenance can be rectified in a reasonable manner. At the very least, it is good to know that my intuition is reasonably sound, that I can recognize when something is wrong and comment on it thoughtfully, without it being an inappropriate affection.

As a matter of fact, I tend to be concerned about the level of understatement I have. Those people who do not know me personally are often unaware of the specific sort of nature that I have. Most people tend to be far more expressive in person. My writing, to be sure, is very expressive, but compared to the rather flat affect and extreme understatement and restraint of my personal interactions, my writing must seem rather intensely bracing to other people. Yet it is good to know that those people who know me personally are able to take my concern seriously, to realize that when I mention something even haltingly and seemingly casually that something is seriously wrong. It is not particularly enjoyable that something is wrong, but at the same time, it is worthwhile to have my own sense of intuition validated, so that if I recognize something is a concern that it really is. Such insight is worthwhile to know, even if it is not always enjoyable when the concern is validated.

[1] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/04/17/a-roman-murder-mystery/

[2] https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2016/04/04/order-of-operations/