If life was a question, the answer would be your eulogy, or at least how you are remembered. So the question is, how will you be remembered and who will be doing the remembering?
Everybody wants and respects wisdom. Those big sentences that give us the "Oh shit" moment and make everything seem so simple. Those are the sentences most wish they could produce.
Yet just like those who live in hot climates long to see snow, and those who live in the cold long for the sun... Wisdom and Learning are two very different things. Wisdom, or more accurately the illusion of wisdom can be constructed from an advanced vocabulary and some lateral thinking.
I find it very easy to out argue somebody, or better articulate their thoughts. In a strange way I can get to the very route of understanding... and you'd think this would be all a person ever needs, and often for other people a good listener is all they need to be content. If only my life were so simple :p
What use are answers without questions? If you remember at school when the teacher gave you questions and answers, you always had to write the question? I would always discard the question and just write the answer. I appear to be wired for thinking that way and here's how it can be bad.
1) Dogs
2) Insight
3) banana's
4) Probably Greece
5) Alan Carr
6) Twice a week on average
The above are all the answers to some quite interesting questions. Yet standing alone they are utterly useless. They could be about anything, and it would take some pretty good guess work to figure out what they mean.
How about another example. If you ever cheated and looked at the answers to fill in the crossword, notice how the enjoyment is destroyed. If you ever used a guide to a video game, its nowhere near as fun. We love to discover, its hard-wired.
In effect, having all the answers is USELESS.
In a conversation, or debate if one person starts with a very well rounded and articulate statement covering a lot of possible comebacks, the debate is stifled and the joy is gone. Whenever we are given an answer, we don't like it that much.
So when we have a friend who can help us express ourselves, we find it intoxicating. Instead of cheating, we are forced to articulate our own thoughts and learn something about ourselves. Communication is one of the joys of living. Not having the answer, but travelling to it WITH OTHERS.
So with several paragraphs of qualification I'm about to make a bold statement. I have always being accused of being a smart arse, of having all the answers. I've realised that yes, that's actually true.
I have a nose for an answer and I will instinctively find it. Of course as I've established that's of no real use to me, beyond a discipline mechanism. I still have to learn and experience things just like anyone else, I just happen to be really good at knowing what to do. Whether I do it or not is a different matter all together, and where I require my friends. Like the guy in the hot climate begging for snow, I need people who challenge and interest me. People who can put up with my shit. The combination of challenge and strong desire to live life to the fullest is an excellent recipe to ensure someone will be close to me.
Whenever you have an epiphany the temptation is to shout it from the rooftops, it creates a rush of mania that is addictive and evangelical. I've come to learn that far smarter people than I have had all the epiphanies I have, and articulated them far better. It's interesting just how wise figures from history that are well known can be.
The issue isn't that this knowledge doesn't exist. All your answers are out there... It's that they have to be tied up into what we call a lifetime. It's at this point you stop seeing the answer as the goal. The answer alone is useless. It's how you get there and who with.
If life was a question, the answer would be your funeral, or at least how you are remembered. So the question is, how will you be remembered and who will be doing the remembering?
Everybody wants and respects wisdom. Those big sentences that give us the "Oh shit" moment and make everything seem so simple. Those are the sentences most wish they could produce.
Yet just like those who live in hot climates long to see snow, and those who live in the cold long for the sun... Wisdom and Learning are two very different things. Wisdom, or more accurately the illusion of wisdom can be constructed from an advanced vocabulary and some lateral thinking.
I find it very easy to out argue somebody, or better articulate their thoughts. In a strange way I can get to the very route of understanding... and you'd think this would be all a person ever needs, and often for other people a good listener is all they need to be content. If only my life were so simple :p
What use are answers without questions? If you remember at school when the teacher gave you questions and answers, you always had to write the question? I would always discard the question and just write the answer. I appear to be wired for thinking that way and here's how it can be bad.
1) Dogs
2) Insight
3) banana's
4) Probably Greece
5) Alan Carr
6) Twice a week on average
The above are all the answers to some quite interesting questions. Yet standing alone they are utterly useless. They could be about anything, and it would take some pretty good guess work to figure out what they mean.
How about another example. If you ever cheated and looked at the answers to fill in the crossword, notice how the enjoyment is destroyed. If you ever used a guide to a video game, its nowhere near as fun. We love to discover, its hard-wired.
In effect, having all the answers is USELESS.
In a conversation, or debate if one person starts with a very well rounded and articulate statement covering a lot of possible comebacks, the debate is stifled and the joy is gone. Whenever we are given an answer, we don't like it that much.
So when we have a friend who can help us express ourselves, we find it intoxicating. Instead of cheating, we are forced to articulate our own thoughts and learn something about ourselves. Communication is one of the joys of living. Not having the answer, but travelling to it WITH OTHERS.
So with several paragraphs of qualification I'm about to make a bold statement. I have always being accused of being a smart arse, of having all the answers. I've realised that yes, that's actually true.
I have a nose for an answer and I will instinctively find it. Of course as I've established that's of no real use to me, beyond a discipline mechanism. I still have to learn and experience things just like anyone else, I just happen to be really good at knowing what to do. Whether I do it or not is a different matter all together, and where I require my friends. Like the guy in the hot climate begging for snow, I need people who challenge and interest me. People who can put up with my shit. The combination of challenge and strong desire to live life to the fullest is an excellent recipe to ensure someone will be close to me.
Whenever you have an epiphany the temptation is to shout it from the rooftops, it creates a rush of mania that is addictive and evangelical. I've come to learn that far smarter people than I have had all the epiphanies I have, and articulated them far better. It's interesting just how wise figures from history that are well known can be.
The issue isn't that this knowledge doesn't exist. All your answers are out there... It's that they have to be tied up into what we call a lifetime. It's at this point you stop seeing the answer as the goal. The answer alone is useless. It's how you get there and who with.
If life was a question, the answer would be your funeral, or at least how you are remembered. So the question is, how will you be remembered and who will be doing the remembering?
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