Knowledge is power. We all know this, in many cases based on a simple understanding: the more informed a choice, the greater the freedom attached. If you want to scare someone, a page of dry commentary on an oncoming water-fuelled Armageddon is not the answer. You want pictures, and if there were ever a more compelling demonstration of why you get the fuck out of the way of a Hurricane, then this video is it.
My daughter this morning prompted a conversation around honesty, and how learning when to use it can become a useful tool when dealing with confrontational situations. Allowing both kids a freedom with information which is clearly not the norm around their peers has bought consequences, but a parental decision remains sound. Discussing issues that cause anxiety or fear, dealing with concerns… all these allow a mind to find optimal means by which knowledge can be processed.
Yup, I’ll admit I never grasped that Red and Yellow Peppers were just Green Peppers that had been ripened until VERY recently. Why would this need to be something I knew? It is a perfect example of how new knowledge is applied to old experience, showing that if those two concepts aren’t forced to interface from time to time, mind can end up almost wilfully ignorant… typifying an attitude that means that no good music was ever recorded after the death of Elvis, or that the only good car is the one with the biggest engine.
Knowledge, however, is as only as good as your ability to process it effectively.
More’s been learnt about myself in the last two years than ever happened in the previous twenty. Not only must there be a desire to learn, but comprehension of how others perceive the same process, because undoubtedly you will encounter those for whom the journey isn’t about self-improvement. Often, those simply managing to stay stable won’t want or need your outlook, or indeed take kindly to any assertion they could do more.
Education of any kind is often a state many people simply never want to return to, because of bad memories from childhood, but remaining in a place where your knowledge never grows or is added to seems… well, an awful waste of life. I’m not advocating that everybody goes back to school, but even an occasional push out of comfort zones to look at bigger pictures could have massive long-term benefits to mental longevity.
However, you have to want this, and it is apparent many people are simply happier not knowing.
laughing-geek.com 