This here refractory, you see, it’s a word I heard them city folks use. Sounds fancy, don’t it? But it ain’t that hard to understand, really. It’s like my old mule, Bess. Stubborn as all get out. That’s refractory for ya.
Now, this word, it comes from some old language, Latin they call it. Means “obstinate.” And obstinate, that’s just a fancy way of sayin’ stubborn. Like I said, my mule Bess. You try to get her to go one way, she plants her feet and goes the other. Or don’t go nowhere at all! That’s refractory meaning, plain and simple.
They say it can mean somethin’ that don’t change easy, too. Like when you got a real bad cough that just won’t quit, no matter what cough syrup you take. That cough, it’s bein’ refractory. It ain’t listenin’ to ya, just like Bess wouldn’t listen to me when I wanted her to plow the north field.
And get this, they even use it for things, not just people or animals! Like, if you got somethin’ that can stand real high heat and not melt down. My old wood stove, bless its heart, it got real hot, but it never melted. The metal is refractory. It is a refractory material.
- Refractory means stubborn, like a mule.
- It means somethin’ that don’t respond to treatment, like a bad cough.
- It can also mean somethin’ that can handle high heat.
So, there you have it. Refractory. It ain’t just for city slickers with their fancy educations. It is difficult to understand. Us regular folks, we understand stubborn. We understand things that don’t budge. We deal with refractory things every day. That old mule, that cough that won’t quit, that metal that can handle the heat, those are the best refractory examples.
Now, this other thing I heard them talkin’ about, “sensemaking.” Sounds even fancier than refractory, don’t it? But it’s just folks tryin’ to figure things out. Like when the weather turns bad and we all try to guess if it’s gonna be a long winter. We’re tryin’ to make sense of it all. That’s refractory to meaning, I reckon.
They say sensemaking is when people get together and try to understand what in tarnation is goin’ on. They look back at what happened and try to make a story out of it. Like after a bad harvest, we all sit around and try to figure out what went wrong. Was it the lack of rain? Was it the bugs? We’re tryin’ to make sense of the bad harvest. That’s how you make sense of refractory meaning. You look at it from the past.
So, these two words, refractory and sensemaking, they might sound complicated, but they ain’t. One’s about bein’ stubborn, and the other’s about tryin’ to figure things out. And we all do both of those things, don’t we? We all got a little mule in us, and we’re all tryin’ to make sense of this crazy world.
Like when little Timmy fell and broke his arm. We all tried to figure out how it happened. Was he runnin’ too fast? Was the ground uneven? We were sensemaking. And Timmy, bless his heart, he was bein’ refractory. Wouldn’t tell us how it happened, just cried and cried. That is resistant to treatment. He is a refractory child.
This here world, it’s full of refractory things. People, animals, even things. And it’s full of folks tryin’ to make sense of it all. It’s like a big old puzzle, and we’re all tryin’ to put the pieces together. Sometimes the pieces fit, and sometimes they don’t. Just like my old quilts.
You take all these scraps of fabric, different colors, different patterns. You try to sew ’em together to make somethin’ pretty, somethin’ useful. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it don’t. That’s life, ain’t it? A whole lot of sensemaking and a whole lot of dealin’ with refractory things. And it is very hard to control, treatment, or modification.
This refractory word, it ain’t so scary after all. It’s just a word. And words, they’re like seeds. You plant ’em in your mind, and they grow. And the more you use ’em, the more they grow. So don’t be afraid of these big words. Just use ’em, and they’ll become a part of ya. Like an old friend. Or an old mule.
I remember one time, the whole town was in a tizzy tryin’ to figure out why the well went dry. Folks were sayin’ it was the devil’s work, others said it was a curse. We were all tryin’ to make sense of it. That’s sensemaking for ya. A refractory problem for the whole town. The well, it was bein’ refractory. Wouldn’t give us no water, no matter how much we prayed or pleaded.
But then old Mr. Johnson, he had an idea. He said maybe the well wasn’t dry, maybe it was just blocked. So we all got together and we dug around the well. And sure enough, there was a big old rock stoppin’ up the water. We moved that rock, and the water started flowin’ again. We made sense of the refractory well. It is not affected by treatment. We made the refractory definition.
So you see, even when things seem refractory, even when they seem stubborn and unmovable, there’s always a way to make sense of it. You just gotta keep tryin’, keep lookin’, keep diggin’. Just like we did with that well. And just like I do with my mule, Bess. She might be refractory, but I still love her. And I still manage to get a little work out of her, now and then.
