They say we can't multi task.
Well I beg to agree.
I was cooking a few curries the other day. My limit at multi task is to cut enough onions for three curries and get out the spices and stuff for all of them. From then on I can only make one dish at a time. This stuff I see when people cook several dishes within the same time span is beyond me. I can get my feet and hands to do different things at the same time though, which comes in handy for the drums.
Whilst I was in the kitchen cooking one dish at a time, and rather enjoying myself with a good kicking rocky playlist going on in the background, I heard some singing. I glanced across at the ten year old who was sitting at the computer. She was on MSN messenger. She was also playing an online game. She was also playing a game on her Nintendo thing.
She was also happily singing along with Thom Yorke on "Just".
"You do it to yourself you do
And that's what really hurts is
You do it to yourself just you"
I looked at her with that look of love that all Fathers know. Proud but hurt.
Proud that my ten year old daughter can be so good at multi tasking at such a young age. Chatting on MSN, playing an online game and playing a Nintendo game, all while singing along to Radiohead in their good heavier days, before they went all weird and Kid A ish.
Hurt because I'd cut my finger on the knife while I was watching her and trying to cut the onions at the same time.
Q.E.D
Sri Lanka’s Ingenuity paradox
2 weeks ago
11 comments:
This scene is so much like scenes at my own home! Yeah! their ability to multi task is enviable...and makes me feel old and like I'm really going down hill.hehe! maybe we just are.And I'm trying to face that...:)!
Well almost all men I know are pretty damn good multitaskers. They can fully appreciate a woman on the road while driving.
I dunno mate...I think cooking chicken curry, parippu and alla thel dala at the same time is not too hard...just have to keep in mind which spices go in which pot and then the different cooking times for each allows a pretty much simultaneous cooking session to be completed without too much hassle.
kudos on the 10 year old's abilities though...thats bloody amazing..
Indyana - I would hazard a guess that you're much better at multi tasking than the average man though!
Spectral - Good point, but I usually struggle to drive properly when ogling women.
N - Clearly you're a much more advanced cook that I am. I can sometimes manage to prepare 2 dishes, but even that's pushing it.
I can multitask when cooking but it tends to be rather stressful, so I prefer not to. Multitasking at work is a must unfortunately; some techniques require an incubations of several hours so setting up another different technique meanwhile is the norm rather than just waiting. If I'm not familiar with the techniques, then refering to several protocols at the same time confuses me and something invariably goes wrong. Maybe this explains all my fuckups at work?
(apologising in advance for the clinical lean of the following)
you can truly multitask only if you need not devote attention to more than one task that you perform (most of us, for example, can talk while we eat and smile). so, if we engage in something for so long that it becomes a second nature, such as with eating, smiling, perhaps drumming for you, cooking for darwin, performing a parallel task is possible...
...we old timers just havent managed to make games and msn our 'second-nature' activities.
on the bright side i'm looking forward to seeing the kids of tomorrow having to drop everything they do every time they need to flush the loo or chew a mouthful of food!
Jokerman - Thanks for that comment, no apologies are required. I think you're right about making things "second nature". When I'm working on something new in drumming I'm continually trying to get to a state where it's on "Autopilot". It's only once I can get a groove to that stage that I can then really start to work on the feel of it.
Just watching my 12 year cousin play FIFA on his playstation (the black one.. is it 2?) with a level of concentration Garry Kasparov would be proud of, makes me think that although multi tasking may not be our bag when we have just one task to accomplish we do it bloody well...
Firstly, kudos to the 10 year-old on listening to Radiohead (even if it is The Bends, which is good but nowhere near great).
HOWEVER, there is no need to go shitting on Kid A. For my money, the best album of this new century and, with the exception of 'OK Computer', Radiohead's best work. Shame on you, R. SHAME.
Arun - We could debate this forever and I guess we'll never convince each other! I just didn't "get" OK Computer. I love Paranoid Android and Karma Police but the rest of it was too mellow and just not type of thing. Yet The Bends is an album I keep coming back to, I don't think I'll ever get bored of it. What do you think of Muse? For me they're what I wish Radiohead had turned out like.
hehe! i just noticed the title changes that you have made...aptly sums up my life in a few words..lol
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