Grounded Greatness 9/23/09

12:05:54 AM EDT

Grounded Greatness


The beginning of wisdom is to desire it.

Solomon Ibn Gabirol
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Today I read some upsetting journals. After checking in with my regular journal friends, I decided to go exploring and read some blogs and their comments that I haven't read before. I was appalled at what I found. So many people are sending out harsh and uninformed opinions about our government, our politicians, our society, the media, the celebrities and each other. Some of the journals were written by people who seemed to have left intelligent, sensitive comments in other people's journals, but when I went to their own I found venom. I was stunned to see to what extent a person can set aside any degree of integrity and self-respect in order to express ignorant words of murderous mentality and ethical squalor. As I went from one to the other I finally felt as if I was following a path of moral contagion and I turned back.

I'm not ignorant to the world of hatred and bigotry on all levels of society. I just didn't expect to find it where I did. A fellow announces himself a good guy with a pleasant face and then writes poison. I hope someone tells him to get his feet off the soap box and back on the ground where real life is.

Information is easy to come by. We can Google almost anything and get more information than we want. Putting the information together and making sense out of it is a learning experience. That's how we gain knowledge. Next comes understanding which is only gained by asking a lot of questions and answering them. Anyone can learn facts and figures. Understanding must be strived for.

Wisdom is another matter. We must really want it to get it. It is difficult, sometimes scary and it's very easy to leave it there and walk away. But once we gain any wisdom about anything we know how valuable it is. We can't help but search for it when we need to and want to. Wisdom is made of ideas, ideas which are chewed, swallowed and digested. And wisdom is made of hard fought and hard won life experience. It is NOT made of opinions.

One must tread carefully through the Internet Jungle.


DB - The Vagabond