"If you are dyslexic, your eyes work fine, your brain works fine, but there is a little short circuit in the wire that goes between the eye and the brain. Reading is not a fluid process"
About this Quote
Jenner reaches for the language of hardware because it’s the quickest way to make an invisible struggle feel concrete. “Your eyes work fine, your brain works fine” is doing cultural triage: it preemptively pushes back against the lazy stigma that reading difficulty equals low intelligence or poor effort. The “short circuit” metaphor is blunt, a little clunky, and that’s part of why it lands. An athlete explaining dyslexia isn’t trying to win a seminar; he’s trying to win a room.
The subtext is a plea for dignity dressed up as mechanics. By framing dyslexia as a misfire “in the wire,” Jenner relocates the problem from character to circuitry. That matters in a sports culture built on discipline and grind, where the default diagnosis for any limitation is “try harder.” The line “Reading is not a fluid process” is quietly radical in that context: it refuses the myth of smooth, invisible competence. It also hints at exhaustion - not the dramatic kind, but the constant micro-friction of decoding words while everyone else skates.
There’s also a strategic optimism embedded here. If the system is “fine” but the connection is tricky, then accommodations and alternative strategies aren’t special favors; they’re practical workarounds. Coming from someone whose public identity is bodily mastery, the quote smuggles in a broader message: excellence doesn’t require pretending your brain works like everybody else’s.
The subtext is a plea for dignity dressed up as mechanics. By framing dyslexia as a misfire “in the wire,” Jenner relocates the problem from character to circuitry. That matters in a sports culture built on discipline and grind, where the default diagnosis for any limitation is “try harder.” The line “Reading is not a fluid process” is quietly radical in that context: it refuses the myth of smooth, invisible competence. It also hints at exhaustion - not the dramatic kind, but the constant micro-friction of decoding words while everyone else skates.
There’s also a strategic optimism embedded here. If the system is “fine” but the connection is tricky, then accommodations and alternative strategies aren’t special favors; they’re practical workarounds. Coming from someone whose public identity is bodily mastery, the quote smuggles in a broader message: excellence doesn’t require pretending your brain works like everybody else’s.
Quote Details
| Topic | Learning |
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