Blaring Gaps in Knowledge: Marshall Eriksen

Marshall Eriksen has many gaps in knowledge but most of them are based on the fact that he's largely an 8 year old in a freakishly tall 30 year old body.

He can't seem to swallow pills; he can't wink (when he tries, he looks more like there's something irritating his eye); he doesn't know how to properly make oatmeal; belts confuse him. To be honest: he's me at 8 years old.

My mom was crushing up my pills and putting them on a spoon of applesauce up until I was about 12 or 13.  I didn't learn how to isolate one eye until I was at least 14. Me winking was the same as me blinking.

Although I could have probably figured out the oatmeal, I always had a problem with it as a food stuff. I hated it lumpy and no matter how fast I seemed to eat it or how often I stirred it, it always ended up like a lump of oatmeal cookie dough by the end of breakfast.

And belts, let me just say I was the kid who wore rainbow suspenders because Mork from Ork was effing cool as hell and I wanted to be him.

Mork from Ork was a dork and in school, he would have recieved atomic wedgies all day long. Suspenders make it SO MUCH EASIER to give someone an atomic wedgie.

Less documented though and something I've observed is a different kind of gap in knowledge for Marshall.

His gap is a gap that allows him to see the good in just about anyone. Some people would call it naivete, others might even call him gullible. But the fact is, Marshall Eriksen, implicitly trusts everyone, all the time.

And we all have a friend like this, someone who gives the benefit of the doubt to everyone, no matter how consistently a person lets you down or acts in the same irresponsible way. Marshall is the first to forgive you for your foibles and the last to let you down.

No doubt he's been hurt by people who took advantage of his good nature, time and time again, but he's managed to somehow keep his positive outlook on people.

Marshall attributes this characteristic to his upbringing and to his father specifically.

He and I lost our fathers about the same time and my father was much like his and I am proud, just like him of this gap in knowledge. That some people are not trying to be good and just and noble. That "knowledge" has somehow escaped us.

Maybe because we find it easy to hope in people because people can do some pretty cool things. And we've been witness to it.