Fwd: [acb-chat] Wisdom or Folly, how do we know?

Just thought I'd share how I spend a damp, dreary Saturday morning.
Carl/Dad

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Carl Jarvis via acb-chat <acb-chat@acblists.org>
Date: Sat, 19 Jan 2019 16:13:45 +0000
Subject: [acb-chat] Wisdom or Folly, how do we know?
To: "General discussion list for ACB members and friends where a wide
range of topics from blindness to politics, issues of the day or
whatever comes to mind are welcome. This is a free form discussion
list." <acb-chat@acblists.org>
Cc: Carl Jarvis <carjar82@gmail.com>

To All My Manipulated Sisters and Brothers.

With nothing better to do on a dreary January Saturday morning on the
Great Olympic Peninsula, I read several contributions by Mostafa, as
well as several very firm opinions from our conservative members. I
came to the conclusion that we are all victims of Manipulators.
We react negatively to emotion laden words like, "manipulated", but
isn't that a big part of how we Humans interact, both on a personal
basis as well as our interaction between government and governed?
What caused Cathy and me to decide on buying a Toyota Tacoma? Why do
I lean toward Progressive Propaganda? What caused me to proclaim
myself to be an Agnostic...but not an Atheist or a Buddhist or a
Christian?
Interwoven throughout that which we call, "information", are
deliberate efforts to manipulate our decisions.
The thing we should do, but do very little of, is to learn how to
reason...how to think...how to process what is going on around us. We
send our children to school to be "Educated". Some of us can afford
to send our youngsters to Church schools, or to Private schools that
teach the young to believe exactly as we do. Very little of what we
call education is teaching our children how to reason and how to
question.
How we adults handle the manipulation that goes on constantly around
us, depends on how we've trained ourselves to reason. Because we have
few "teachers" to teach us how to reason, we mostly must teach
ourselves. For most of us it is a life long process. It's far easier
to lock in, as Mostafa does, and declare that we have found "Truth
Everlasting", and look down our learned noses at the rest of the
world.
Actually, I rather like the "Trial and Error" method. But then I
always did like flea markets, secondhand shops and the Salvation Army
stores. Life is like walking into that huge Salvation Army store and
beholding row after row of interesting castoffs. By picking and
choosing, mixing and matching, picking up this or that and setting
aside an earlier item, we come to the checkout counter with an array
of stuff we would never have discovered if we'd not entered the front
door. Think of all those people who never enter. What dull lives
they must live. They head for the latest glitzy shop peddling useless
bobbles, never questioning, never looking behind the Wizard's Curtain,
never wondering where such a shop came from. Just willing to accept
what it offers, until told that it no longer is fashionable, and a new
Flashy Shop springs up.
In my opinion, through all of those Forces that have Manipulated me, I
find the Salvation Army approach to be far more interesting than if I
accepted going from one glitzy shop to the next, without question.
Those who mix and match, are far more apt to leave Life in better
shape than they found it.
Finally, I like to think of myself as a river rather than as a big
rock. The rock is heavy and secured to one spot. It goes on
generation after generation, solid, unmoving and unchanging. But the
river is never still. It moves. It passes through forests, meadows,
villages, and through canyons on its way to the Sea. The river
certainly has a far more interesting existence than the Rock, and is
far more likely to make life joyful and tolerable for those among whom
it passes, than the contribution of the Rock.
Well, I notice the open Sea just around the next bend, so I'll need to
be on my way.

Carl Jarvis
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