If you're going to wrote a blog post on the topic, probably worth spending a few minutes double checking your understanding of the "thing". I don't doubt that the author may have been taught the wrong thing, but to write an entire post starting from and remaining in a state of misunderstanding is not particularly useful.
The entire point of the article is that his original understanding of the “thing” was a misunderstanding, with a heavy emphasis on how his teachers led him to that misunderstanding.
Author used a rhetorical device that you seem to have missed.