How mathematics homework stopped a ninja

NOBODY took the time to properly explain the concept of “school” to me. Maybe it’s not their fault; we don’t usually explain things we consider obvious.

Take homework, for example. How was I to know that once your parents – those beings you loved and trusted (note the past tense) – sold you into schooling slavery, that was the end of your fun forever?

I mean, come on … is it not enough to be hauled out of a comfy bed at an ungodly hour and marched into incarceration for endless hours? Why would anyone, any rational person, still want to prolong the torture with little mathematics assignments from prison, especially when there was so much fun to be had in those few precious hours of freedom?

Besides, I reasoned that teachers who gave homework hadn’t prepared their lessons properly. That’s why they leaned on us to go above and beyond, sacrificing our time to make them look good.

No one ever explained why we had to do it. It was always a case of them growling, “Just because I say so.” And then, to add injury to insult, they would beat us up for not doing our – or should I say their – homework.

Besides, how could a dull, confusing subject like mathematics help me in my quest to become a ninja, my first career ambition?

It was only decades later that I learned that math develops analytical thinking – the ability to break problems into smaller parts, reason clearly, and persist through challenges. In other words, everything a dedicated ninja would need. 

For the record, one spin-off of not doing maths homework regularly enough is that it appears as if my analytical thinking and reasoning are a bit laboured. As a result, navigating society and the barrage of information that comes my way is a bit of a chore … especially these days.

Maybe it’s a good thing. With the way fact and fancy are freely forked out, one needs to be careful. “Truth” these days seems as if sometimes it’s generated without objective facts. 

Increasingly, the more authority someone is perceived to have, the more they feel entitled to declare truth in the absence of facts. As if their power gives them licence to tell you what’s true even if it cuts across reality.

That’s why I am very careful when listening to powerful or eloquent speakers. Too often I’ve seen people swept up in the emotion of well-spoken but misguided words, as if saying something well gives the argument weight. 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not sceptical of eloquence. I just listen more carefully so that my reason isn’t hijacked by emotion.

The other camp that worries me is those who bombard you with words. A non-stop barrage leaves little time to think things through. And don’t get me started on those who argue loudly, as if volume could turn “because I said so” into actual fact.

Then there are preachers. Boy, can they go on and on. I recently heard a story of one long-winded preacher who, after prattling for over an hour, asked his congregation: “Do you know what I’m going to say next?”

A voice from the pews answered honestly: “Hopefully ‘Amen’.”