I Don’t Think So

I have been wondering today just how and when a person develops wisdom.

I think that I am starting to be somewhat wise...perhaps...maybe about certain things. My wife doesn’t think so and my kids sure as hell don’t value anything that I say to them, so why do I feel that I am beginning to develop wisdom? It is simple; I just know when something feels right and true. I guess now would be a good time to look up the definition of wisdom, before I get both feet in my mouth.

Wisdom is the comprehension of what is true or right coupled with optimum judgment as to action.

Uhhhh...maybe I have a ways to go. Particularily with respect to the optimim judgement as to action part. I am pretty good with the true and right part though. I have blundered through this life with the intention of doing the right thing but sometimes life just gets in the way. I am pretty sure that the guy asking for money on the street is going to spend it on booze or drugs so I generally will say no. How do I know? This poor guy could be starving and I automatically paint him and all of the rest of the “bumwiches” with the same brush. Money has always come to me slowly and left quickly. I just feel that there is truth to my initial feeling.

A thousand years ago or so, most of the world was ruled with the feudal system. In that system the “Nobels” basically owned everything and everyone. They had to feed, clothe and house all of their serfs, not to mention find work for them to do. Just look at the large construction projects they did back in the day. I suspect that eventually some smart nobel came up with the idea of freeing the serfs. “Instead of supplying all of the serfs needs you just have to pay them a small wage and (here is the good part) they will need to buy their food, clothing and houses from US! They will also have to beg us for a job and if we don’t like their attitude we fire them!”

Voila..modern world!

Tonight on facebook I got into a heated discussion about the striking postal workers with a thirty something person. The trouble with being thirty is that you are...well...thirty. For about twenty to twenty-five of those thirty years your mom and dad have been buying your underwear and wipeing your ass. The biggest decision that you have made is “Do I wear the blue blouse or the pink blouse?” It is a bigger decision if you are a male than if you are a female, for obvious reasons. Over the last few years I have been trying to come up with markers to indicate when you reach adulthood. One of the main ones is do you buy your own underwear? If the answer is no then you aren’t an adult yet or you married a wonderful woman that thinks white is wrong. Have you ever admitted that you were wrong? Do you do a job because it needs to be done? There is another indicator, and that is do you see things in black and white or in shades of grey?

With this facebook discusion the one side was painted as evil and the other as the rational voice of reason. Strangely I was more for the evil side if you can believe that. I know however that both sides in the dispute need a good swift kick in the ass. The negotiators have lost sight of the fact that the lives they are playing with belong to real people with families, loans, mortgages and responsibilities. No one wins in these things, but sometimes you have to go against what you know to be in your best interest and poke the bear in the butt with a stick. Well, the strike is over now and the serfs were put in their place. They will still make a living and hopefully still enjoy going to work, but some little spark of life has been extinguished. Perhaps that is why we eventually die, too many sparks have been put out.

The wise thing to do tonight would have been to just shrug my shoulders and hope that in the future a little grey will creep into her head. You can’t change a persons mind with a frontal assault, because they dig in and hide behind whatever beliefs they are clinging to. The way to change a mind is by saying that “I believe it for this reason, and it may be wrong, but I don’t think so.” They will shake their head knowing you to be an idiot, but hopefully you will have planted a seed of doubt. Probably not but at least you have tried.

I’m done with this for now, but I believe that the common man deserves a decent wage and benefits and a good enough pension that he doesn’t have to eat cat food, it may be wrong, but I don’t think so...