My husband (military) used to call this ‘field expedience’. Grab anything at hand to make something else work. Make a new tool on the spot. Remember where you are and where North is. Be able to know and identify one cow out of a hundred..and on and on.
Big difference from desk or book knowledge. Our ancestors in the remote steppes, the Indo Europeans, spoke a language a hundred times more complex than the one we speak now. And they couldn’t even read or write.
God, how did we ever survive?
I have a guy that works for me that is a functional illiterate. I inherited him from previous management. He can take apart complex pieces of machinery and successfully repair them with no assistance. He is a self taught millwright and welder. Very successful in his activities at work and well compensated.
Both my husbands were in the military-MrT5 made it his career-both were very good at improvising in any situation, particularly on a hunting or camping trip.
I speak Spanish as a second language-can read it, think in it and even write a little of it, but I learned as a child. I absolutely don’t think I could learn a third language with any degree of proficiency.
I think our Indo European ancestors had a gift for languages, because some of those people still do-there is a family out here who came from India about 30 years ago-2 of their 3 kids were born here-the whole family speaks English, and the dialect from where the parents came from in India-they also speak Spanish as well as I do, and the parents speak some French-don’t know how they do that...