Tying Of Shoe Laces

The problem started when my son was admitted in LKG in 1976 with

a pucca white uniform with shoes.Every day I helped him wearing the shoes.Trouble started when he was asked to wear the shoes himself.
It was a Himalayan task for him.Tying shoelaces has been a dreadful task ever since I can remember. The process of creating a knot would always bamboozle him up in figurative bind. He was such a brilliant boy, earned very good name in the school,quick graping etc etc.

My son initially assumed this was hard for everyone else too, but no one else in the elementary school seemed to have any hassles.

It was a common sight those days to find him

playing cricket at the middle school grounds with his shoelaces failing all around. “Dude, tie your laces, you are going to trip!” his friends will scream. From time to time, he will kneel down, make an effort to fasten a knot, and it will stay in place for a few minutes, but then start to loosen, and eventually give in to what appeared to be its irresistible need to be unbound. Lacing up a new shoe with six pairs of eyelets was its own nightmarish endeavor that would visit him once every couple of years.The only complaint against him was he didn't know to tie the shoe laces.When he got first mark in all the subjects, a remark was passed by the Headmaster while awarding medal during the Anniversary function "----but the
boy does not know how to tie his shoe laces."

The problem didn't end there.Students answered their school exams on loose sheets of paper. At the end of the exam, each student would need to tie their papers together with a white twine. The knot had to be strong or some of the papers might get orphaned from the main page that carried name of the student. At the end of every exam, after a number of failed attempts, he would sheepishly approach the supervising teacher to help him with the knot. Most were generous, but some would be annoyed, especially as this became a recurring issue even as he grew older.
Myself and my husband failed in our attempts to train him
Yes,it was a big task for the brilliant child.
Growing up in a traditional household in an urban Indian city, there are knots abound all around. Hanging clothes lines on the terrace, setting up tents for family functions, packing or unpacking things, and even performing sacred religious functions seemed to involve the making and unmaking of knots. He felt like a fish out of water when asked to engage with anything that might involve knotting, and his clumsiness even became a source of comic relief among friends and family.


For unknown reasons, the basic technique of knotting continued to elude his mental grasp, even as he became a full-grown adult, husband, and father. It seemed to require a certain level of intimidating dexterity with his fingers, and created anguish and exasperation. He saw knots more as pesky demons that tripped him up than the simple loops they actually were.
He got University rank in BE and studied MBA in IIM.

His wedding involved tying a mangal sutra around his wife’s neck, and he was so terrified of failing the test on the big day that he
had talked to my daughter about covering for him just in case!

After relocating to the United States, he transitioned to laceless slip-on shoes, never wore ties unless necessary, and figured out a way of life that minimized encounters with knots.

With the passage of time, the knotting nightmares gently receded into the past.

The memories flooded back in a torrent once the pandemic began and when he started playing cricket and basketball on a regular basis in the neighborhood playground. Every evening, every few minutes, right in the middle of the game, his laces on the high-ankle shoes (laceless not recommended for sports if you have weak ankles!) were getting undone. He would be constantly fiddling with the free-flowing laces and he would hear his team-mates issue gentle warnings.

It was deja vu. He was 10 again and could hear the echoes of the past.

The old faultlines with laces and knots were back, but he was many decades older, and the body and the mind had changed.

My son wrote to me.
"This version of me was truly intrigued. It also made me indulge in a more fundamental seeking.

It struck me that I had never paused to reflect on the why. After-all, there is nothing complicated about making a knot or tying your shoelaces right. Was it a sense of shame or inadequacy that I never fully understood or articulated that became a mental block to learning? Or did I not give it the time or attention it deserved? Or did I have some weird structural deficiency —physical or mental—in relating to it?

I decided to run towards whatever this thing was and figure it out. I started understanding the basics of what keeps a knot in place, what can be done to make it more robust, how to deal with extra lengths of the rope or laces, how to double-knot to secure it, and how to untangle it with grace. I also started applying an extra bit of diligence every day to get it correct the first time. It was important to secure it well before starting the play. The more I got it right the first time, the less I had to tinker with it during a game.

After a few weeks, I was good enough to make the knots withstand the stress of an entire evening of sports activities. But why was this so hard for so long? Why would such a simple activity be so hard to master? There was a bigger meta-lesson beneath the surface and it was staring at me in the face."


We begin to acquire physical and mental habits from a very young age— in things big and small— as we engage with life and interact with people.

Habits are ways of thinking and doing that are repetitive. Many habits do help us get better. But several others involve subtle and subconscious conditioning —of thoughts or actions, or both— that become rigid and compulsive. Over time, the habits ossify and rarely do we stop or pause to understand this conditioning and seek to reprogram it.

How often do we reflect on why we react in specific ways, or why we get anxious about certain people, activities, or situations?

Our mental programming is akin to software code that executes on a set of triggers leading to errors in outputs. But what if we can debug and even edit the code? And what if we can do it in full awareness and be fully conscious of what we are changing it to and why?

Every feeling of inadequacy or discomfort —from the simplest to the most profound —is an opportunity to ask why, and drill down to the root cause. As humans living fast lives on goal-driven treadmills and programmed by societal interactions, we unconsciously build up layers upon layers of compulsive behavior that cause suffering. Shining a bright light on them may cause unease, or stir up unhappy memories, but also contains the potential to lead you to the exit ramp out of the muddle.

Here is the good news: All humans are capable of becoming conscious of every unexamined thought, action, or behavior. And we have the ability to edit them as we deem fit, irrespective of the grime and moss it may have accumulated over time.

If we are willing to enter “debug mode” and dig deeper, not just for the trivial, but also the weightier issues that burden our spirits, we can reveal, edit, and redefine ourselves. At a minimum, I can vouch that it will help you figure out how to tie your shoelaces!
Jayasala42

 

Thank you Balajee Thyagarajan Sirs and Madam Swarna Mary forf the nice responses.
In life there are many "knotty" ,naughty too,problems.
They perhaps now-a-days begin with play schools, shoe laces.
In middle school classes we have learnt about 12 types of knots.
Mostly all mothers know how to tie a cloth swing for babies.
And tying a neck Tie is another issue. The problem rises from foot to neck.
Then comes the tieing a knot (Mangal Sutram) which opens up many knotty problems of life. Wonder how, many or all invitees congratulate the couple after the "knot"!
Life without knots is not spicy enough to live; they are a challenge to face and come out successful.
However tying of mangal sutra in marriages does not have vedic sanction as per aapasthamba sutra.
The prayer'Mangalyam thanthunaameva mama jeevana hethuna
Kante badnaami subage jeevema shardah
skatam'
recited during marriages is juat a shloka and not a mantra.
Perhaps the very first reference to mangal sutra is in Lalitha Sahasranaama which
is of very recent origin around 700 to 800 years.It is said that the
thali custom came to vogue only after Muslim invasion to protect married women.
However in Sangam Tamil literature we find an ornament corresponding to Thali
Lord Ganesha is popularly known as 'Mudichchu avizhththa Pillayar" because of his ability to understand the complicated verses in Mahabharatha.
While agreeing to write Mahbharatha with his broken tusk, Ganesha put forth a condition that Vyasa should recite continuously.Vyasa also agreed subject to the condition that that he should fully understand the meaning of the verses
before writing.Vyasa composd around 700 verses with diffcult phrases so that Ganesha could take some time and understand the meaning.
Knots in B hagavatgita and Kamba Ramayanam are well known.The knots placed in one chapter are released by the
author in some other chapter.
We have heard of KNOTTY court cases and knotty patient history,not to talk of extremely complicated mental problems.We live among puzzles.
Jayasala 42