Ten minutes in the bunker

Morning all - quick message from the bunker here, while lunch break ticks away...

I was listening to the radio this morning, as I drove down the nasty, nasty road on the way to work today. Nothing there, listening to the radio...

Today it was about something that I couldn't understand, not at first. It was about illiteracy - that small percentage of the population who can't actually read.

But here I ran into a problem.

I tried to imagine not being able to read. This turned quickly into an "imagine you can't see colour" exercise. Try, as hard as I could, I failed.

Finally, after an Eternity of Hell on the road to work, I arrived and attempted an exercise, but again I was simply unable to do it.

I could not see a word and not read it. If I tried, really, extremely hard I could read the letters before the meaning came. But even then, the meaning was always there waiting for me.

Turn the word around in my mind, reading it 10 times quickly - I could start to strip away the meaning, approach it from a new perspective. Try it - say a word to yourself, in your head. Taste each sound, change in taste. Perspective. Perspective...perspective...

But even then, focus a little and the word springs back - its meaning, uses and abuses.

So I tried french, still seeking an understanding of the issue - to understand not understanding - but even as I looked at writing I couldn't read I was still thinking, ticking away. Trying to match the words back to English. Treating it almost as misspellings, trying to twist it back into understanding.

Even then, knowing that I couldn't follow it I started to piece together limited meaning. That's a regular verb, past tense I think. Reverse that word order there to make sense. In the corner there, that's a name...

Finally I ended up on a Chinese language site - finally, I had the blessed sense of blankness. I had a wall of text that meant nothing. Even the letters were wrong, and could not be fully followed. They may not have been letters - but it didn't matter.

I had found oblivion - but still I could not understand.

For I looked away, and saw a message on the board. I saw, read and understood in less time then it took to run my eyes over the whiteboard.

How do you understand someone who lacks a skill so deeply ingrained in you that you can't not use it, even if you try?