I have lived most of my 69 years on this earth trying to do the right thing. Sure, I don't necessarily follow the rules per se, but I have always been a law abiding person who for the most part tried to live my life on the positive side of the good/bad line.
Growing up and even as an adult, I accepted the rules and regulations as truth. If I was told the earth was round, well then, I believed it was round without ever venturing to the end of the horizon to see if I would drop off into space.
I always believed, as I was told, that the sun rose in the East and set in the West. Although, it wasn't until later that I found out the sun didn't actually rise and fall but the Earth rotated and it made it seem like the sun was rising and setting.
And yes, there were times, that even if I did know the truth, well maybe I didn't want to believe it at the time, but deep down I knew I was just fooling myself. Things like drinking cheap wine and thinking I really wouldn't get a hangover headache. Or thinking that maybe Mom wouldn't smell cigarette smoke and beer on my breath when I came in late at night on a high school weekend. They were truths and they stood the test of time.
But today, I found that one of the truths that I believed in all of my life has now been unveiled to me as an untruth. A simple myth.
I have spoken of or written of my oldest brother, Dave, many times on this blog. His
brilliance is somewhere in the stratosphere, yet he often comes to me with questions on how to solve certain problems of the universe. Sometimes Academia needs to walk hand-hand with Practicality.
Dave and I have been working on several projects together and today it involved DC Current. I won't go any further that that, BUT, he told me something , which I in turn, I had to do and find out for myself.
Did you know, the in the old-timey type flashlights, that you could put the batteries in backwards, assuming they all went the same direction, and the flashlight would still work. Yep, it's true. If you don't believe me, try it for yourself.
Now, keep in mind, that's for the old-time electronic things, today most of our devices are POLAR sensitive, what that means is "Do it the way the instructions say".
But to think all of my life, I put batteries into a flashlight or into a simple device by following the directions and I could have followed MY rules and had done it my way and it still would have worked. This all may sound mundane and simple to many of you, but these were truths that I believed. I held these Truths to be Self-evident.
So today, even though I'm a lot older, a lot more mature (well, sorta), maybe, just maybe I'll once again be a little more adventurous. Maybe I'll go back to taking the road less traveled.
I'm not disappointed. Actually, I feel some exhilaration in knowing that even in the Autumn of my life I am still learning new things. Yes, some aren't as important as others but some things are pretty cool, and Dave and I are on to some new and exciting inventions.
And, did you know that about 20 years ago I was developing a GPS bracelet even before people could even spell GPS, well I mean they could spell GPS of course, but they didn't know what it was. I had the idea for a GPS bracelet that could be used to find lost seniors or kids or even doggies. I never followed up. But, there are plenty of others things out there. And now that I feel a sense of challenge knowing that maybe I just have to believe in myself and not take everything for Gospel truth.
OK, so, in conclusion, be careful on some of the new electronic devices, you might want to double check on putting those batteries in backwards, you could cause the device to run backwards and who knows what might happen. But for those old-timey things like flashlights. You'll be ok. Try it!
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