Only one frame at a time, please

Observe the male of the species: deliberate, focused, and completely oblivious to cries of "Caelan! Look at the camera! Look at daddy!"

I guess I could hardly expect any other response; he is his father's son, after all.

I never did get the multi-tasking thing. I never could succeed at keeping several balls in the air at once; one on the ground was enough to absorb all my energies.

Then along comes Dr Michael Gurian asserting, "The male brain (like the female brain) is multifaceted and is capable of doing and being many things at many times."

It's a nice sentiment, but it's not my personal experience. One of my goals in the present Dale Carnegie course I'm doing (lamented in a previous post) is learning to be fully present to the conversations I find myself in. History records the sad fact that the slightest distraction renders me incapable of intelligent engagement.

Being able to do only one task well at any one time has its benefits. For all the things I don't like about the way my brain works, I do know I am capable of homing-in on a particular task and giving it all my energy to deliver an outcome. In some ways, the male brain is an aggravating design; in other ways, it does work well for so many of the tasks we blokes seem to end up doing.

But not all males of the species are afflicted with this 'single-mindedness'. And not all women are capable of a level of multitasking that Bill Gates can only dream of achieving with Windows. There's some give-and-take in the middle; it's nice to be reminded of this sometimes.

Maybe I'm more down the Governator-end of the spectrum (if only in the brain and speech departments!). But it's reassuring to know there are some women out there who can read maps (meet one of them), and some men out there who can chew gum and wash the car at the same time (perhaps you can provide the name of one to verify this bold assertion).