In the end it is down to pattern recognition
We were playing a game of reading faraway writings in our team. We found that one of our team members was not able to read what was written on the board even at a comfortable distance. We spooked the hell of that person who then went to an optometrist and found that the eyesight was perfect.
Why was that person not able to read well then? It is a problem of pattern recognition, this person has learnt English by being exposed more to print media compared to a variety of handwritten text which was common among others in the group. I then tried it out myself, trying to read Kannada, I learnt Kannada only through prints and fonts. My visual acuity dropped a lot when I tried to read written Kannada compared printed Kannada.
Seemingly simple experiences gets rolled up as ability, isn’t it fascinating. One of my mentors keep saying this to me, you have to widen your experience even though it might not be helpful to you now; one day it will prove out to be useful because it is all down to pattern recognitions at different scales. The more patterns you are exposed to, the more easier you will scale your ability to understand patterns and that too it becomes unconscious competence.
Don’t limit your knowledge and exposure to your area of work alone, I once interacted with a laparoscopic surgeon who mentioned that the dexterity improves by playing first person shooter games. The more wider our exposure the better becomes our pattern recognition and we will be able to handle new situations with ease.
