The most important things cannot be measured.

by W. Edwards Deming

I

Arlu had always measured everything precisely:
laundry soap, cooking oil, rice, vanilla....

She'd never thought about it. She just measured
unlike her mother who splashed things
and you never knew how good the pancakes were
until there was too much syrup covering the one time perfect taste.

One day Tuco asked her about it, why she measured so precisely
and she told him about her mom and how she cooked, washed, ironed.
Its funny how we learn and not learn from those that raise us.

Now she was conscious of her repetitive style.
She knew he wasn't as precise, more so than her mom, less than her.
She considered what he might learn from her
and she from him.

Talent hits a target no one else can hit;
Genius hits a target no one else can see.

Arthur Schopenhauer

II

Tuco marveled at Arlu's precision as she cooked.
But he wondered how she decided what the perfect recipe was.
Habit? A lost memory of an event to evoke? What did she taste
in this routine? He knew he would never know, but he speculated.

Horses were more inconsistent, yet more predictable.
They each had a style, a personality, that remained stable as they grew up
and aged. Things change, but a personality resists circumstance.
Yet there are things that imprint themselves deep in the psyche.

Sometimes the imprint is a scar that limits the reach of the psyche.
Sometimes the imprint is a desire to transcend limits taught
but never learned.

The arrow of desire arcs high and far - it is only which desire -
that of the obsessive teacher or that of the genius student -
the one which limits or the one which leaps beyond that limit's reach.