Thought Diving
Friday, April 13th, 2007I caught myself typing “If I ever have kids” earlier day. A few years ago I would have said “When I have kids”. I pondered for a minute what this may mean and came to the very quick conclusion that through knowing a bit more about life, I am less sure of many things.
Knowledge is like the laws of a society: if defined down to the last detail, it’s easily circumvented and serves no useful purpose. For law to be effective, it has to address a moral stance, not specific details that may or may not apply in unforeseen circumstances.
By the same virtue, knowledge needs to be broad and often ambiguous. The more details you throw into it, the less it will apply to real life situations you may encounter down the road. With excessive details it becomes brittle and proprietary.
The words I used today are not a sign of confusion, but a sign of understanding that life is mostly gray. When and if you think you figured something out, that’s when you’re about to be proven that it ain’t always so. You can know that you will never really know much of anything. It works and makes perfect sense as “Never say never” does.
Diving up from the depths of thought, I’m off to enjoy lunch at my brand new kitchen table. The thought of being more excited about a new piece of furniture than owning the latest video game is still - after all these years - taking a bit of getting used to. Frankly, I hope I never do.