Some
time ago I came to the conclusion that I am, in point of fact,
beginning to get older. I was born in 1958 and by my mathematical
calculations (using today's math) this dates me to somewhere between
seventeen and nineteen years of age. That's my story and I'll stick
to it as long as you let me use contemporary mathematics. Using the
math I grew up with I am, however, in actuality more than
half-a-century old. Now. That may seem like old to some but to
those of us this old and older, it ain't old at all. Younger folk
would do well to actually look up from their phones, tablets, and
computer games and strike up some conversation with us Old Geezers.
With all our years of living has come a tremendous amount of
knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge and wisdom which seems to be in
short supply these days. Most all the young, whipper-snappers of
today lack much understanding which comes from, you guessed it,
knowledge and wisdom! Go figure! So. The next time you ask a
question of a young-un, you'll understand the reason for the
deer-in-the-headlights stare.
This
brings me to a quandary. How do we as naturally inquisitive adults
attain understanding? Through study. That's how! You don't have to
only study books. You must decide to study written texts as well as
a life-long, in-depth study of the world and your immediate
environment. For example: Several years ago, I was preparing
breakfast and was removing several eggs, one-by-one from the
refrigerator to lay out to cook. As I moved the eggs from one spot
to another, I studied the shape of each egg. They were each slightly
different in one way or another but were all “egg-shaped”. I
began to ponder about the definitive shape and how eggs came to be
shaped thus. After some considerable contemplation as I enjoyed the
last remnants of my fried eggs and grits, I decided to see what I may
find on the aforementioned subject on the internet. Keep in mind
that I am a city boy, born and raised in Greenville, South Carolina
and never spent any time on or near a farm. That made me rather
uneducated in regards what others might deem common knowledge.
Following
a few key strokes on the computer, I found a web-site dealing with
nothing but Chicken Trivia hosted by none other than The Georgia Tech
Extension Service. The best part was they had an actual Contact
E-Mail Address! I excitedly went about composing an e-mail
explaining my citified upbringing and my pondering over breakfast
about how those eggshells got their shape. In other words, which freakin' "end" of the egg comes out of the chicken first? I checked my In-box
everyday for over two weeks before finally receiving a response from
the contact person at Georgia Tech's Extension Service about my
Chicken Trivia question. I opened the message and began to read.
“Dear Mr. Davis,....”, it began, “....You are truly one of the
World's greatest thinkers!....” I wasn't sure but I thought I
detected some level of sarcasm in the opening statement therein. He
continued on to explain just how the chicken eggs got their shape and
it then made total sense to me. It was akin to a harsh “Duh!”
moment. No matter the sarcasm interlaced into the response, I
learned something that day. I learned because I was curious enough
to ask the question. I never have claimed to be the smartest person
on the planet and took the ribbing as part of the learning process.
Here's
another example of how I gain understanding from knowledge and
wisdom. I was on a hunting trip many years ago on a ranch in
Wyoming. I was hunting Pronghorn Antelope. After a rather long
morning of trying to figure out the running patterns of the game, I
had become hungry and decided to park low into a draw and eat my
lunch. As I sat there munching on some cheese crackers and Penrose
Sausages and drinking coffee, I noticed a rather large, longhorn bull
had come over the rise to keep an eye on me. I kept an eye on him as
I made sure I had a quick way to escape should he decide to charge.
The bull became relaxed enough to let his attention drift to
something else moving on the prairie and he had turned completely away from me.
I sat there sipping coffee watching the bull. I studied his
movements and admired his lean, muscular appearance. He swatted his
tail to one side then the other to shoo the flies away and that's
when it hit me. I've never understood just how my
brain worked but there it was just as obvious as could be! A
bull's ass is made of beef!
One
more thing for you to consider. You awake in the morning and at some
point scrape the crusty junk from the inside corners of both eyes.
Usually this occurs while sitting in your car at a traffic light as
the person in the lane next to you is watching to see what you do
with it. Come on! You know this has happened to you! At some point
later on in the day, you notice that your eyes feel “funny” and
you again put a finger into each eye's inside corner. This time what
you find is that soft bulb of off-white, sticky matter I refer to as
Eye-Boogers. Most of us will just roll the Eye-Booger between our
index finger and thumb rather than wiping it onto a tissue or (Eewe!)
licking it off with our tongues. Here comes the conundrum. For those
of us who roll it around betwixt digits, where the hell does that
Eye-Booger go? It just seems to disappear! Is there an Eye-Booger
Faerie that comes and snatches it away from us before we wipe it
underneath the car seat or worse, on our pants? I believe what must
happen to the Eye-Booger is that the friction of rolling it around
causes a disturbance in the magnetic flux of the element,
Unobtainium which initiates a linear phase shift in its mass
resulting in faster-than-light-speed transfer from one membrane to
another effectually causing what a number of scientist have dubbed
'The Big Bang'. I came up with this theory while under the influence
of the chemical compound, 3, 4, 5-Trimethoxybenzeneethanamine
(C11H17NO3).
Awe. Come on, Young-uns! I bet a lot of you are wishing you'd
paid attention in Chemistry! It's another one of those "Knowledge + Wisdom = Understanding" things!
Toodles until next week!
No comments:
Post a Comment