Intermittent Reinforcement -- the Most Powerful Kind
Last night, we returned from vacation and I was in a sad mood at being done with extended leisure. I didn't feel awake or spirited enough to blog, and then saw e-mail from an Indian friend's mother, who told me that she liked my blog.
That's all I needed to re-engage me. We had an exchange about how at one time, she knew Jews only as literary characters. I was reminded of how much education I used to lack about Indians; I wrote:
Before high school, the only Indians I knew were in Rudyard Kipling's novel, *Kim.*
I had gone to elementary and junior high only with Jewish kids and I grew up in Stamford, Connecticut, where at the time, there was no Indian community to speak of (I'm 42). There was one kid who hung out with us in high school, Jason Patel, and I'm not kidding: I did not know he was Indian. I thought he was Jewish. I didn't even know that Patel was an Indian name back then.
Progress is important to recognize. I know more now than I knew in high school.
