OT: KNowleDGe

M

munk

Joined
Mar 22, 2002
Messages
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You know, you come to find the HI forum and everyone is friendly and you stick around and pretty soon you learn that guy over there is an expert on swords, and that guy knows metalurgy, and that one Nordic culture, and this one Native American tradition, and that one science, and another couple knife and sword experts, because after all, this is a KNIFE forum, right? And you're taking all this in, enjoying the rays, basking in other's knowledge, for after all, the things you hear in HI you can repeat later in conversation, sort of a win/win, because you can't know everything all by yourself, can you? I mean, you have a couple things you do OK all by your lonesome...

..and then the day comes, well, a couple days actually, at first unrelated but then piling up faster and deeper, going down like dominos, like breaking Christmas tree bulbs, and you find a couple guys who know as much about guns, for instance, like yours truly here, (humble narrator) and then a guy who knows, well, maybe more, yes, more than I do...and pretty soon it's as clear as the sweaty oil on your FACE THAT YOU ACTUALLY KNOW JACK, THAT IS, NOTHING, AND YOU ASK, "OH LORD, DID YOU REALLY LEAVE ME DOWN HERE ALL ALONE WITH SO LITTLE TO HOLD ONTO, COULDN'T YOU HAVE LEFT ME A CRUMB, JUST A LITTLE LIE TO TELL MYSELF EVERY MORNING WHEN I WAKE?"

and the answer comes, no, He couldn't, wouldn't, and you really just don't know much, do you?


No.

I don't.



munk
 
Nobody does. But all of us have heard a little bit about him...

We are all a group of blind and men discovering the face of God. We all tell each other about what we 'see'.
 
I don't know nuthin'. At one point in my life I thought I knew somethin'. However someone eventually came along and showed me how little I knew about the somethin' I thought I knew about. Now I don't know nuthin'. There are some things I have an interest in but I claim to know nuthin'. Sometimes someone wants to talk about somethin' and I can pass on some knowledge about the nuthin' I know. He will go away learning about nuthin' from me. Then there is the guy who thinks he knows somethin' about nuthin'. In actuality he knows nuthin' about nuthin'. I converse about nuthin' politely. Knowing that I know nuthin' he may try to enlighten me on somethin'. Maybe I'll learn somethin'. Probably not. Since I know nuthin' about nuthin' I'll converse politely. You never know, you might learn somethin'. Then there is the guy who actually knows somethin'. Since I know a little about somethin' we talk about nuthin' and I learn more about nuthin. This way I learn more about the nuthin' that I enjoy and adding more knowledge about nuthin' to what little I know. If I develop a repore with the guy who knows somethin', then I will be able to learn more about nuthin' from this guy. If I think like the guy who thinks he knows somethin' then the guy who knows somethin' will probably think "this guy thinks he knows nuthin' but he actually knows nuthin'."

Make sense? Probably not, but then again I never claimed to know anything anyways. :rolleyes:
 
Munk,
Ignorance is bliss. Not that you're ignorant, but you know what I mean. Once, I saw how they make a pencil, from stabilizing the graphite, and getting it into the little wooden dowels, to affixing the little brass sleeve and eraser. Now, whenever I look at a one, I don't see a pencil, but a dowel, some graphite, brass and rubber. Much as I'd like to regain the innocense, it is forever lost. I try not to ask the big questions, lest someone answer them.

Bruise,
God, I wish I was you. :D
 
It's a wise man who knows what he doesn't know.

When I was 20 I knew damn near everything. Now I don't know crap.
What happened?:(

Steve
 
Very good, munk, there are people in their 70's and 80's who haven't attained your level of enlightenment/ignorance ( all depends on your perspective ).

Congratulations. From here on out you'll be learning more and more rapidly to the point you'll finally understand more than you ever though possible, yet have no time to do anything about it.

Want to sign up with me for the newest Winter Olympic event? Kinda like the Jamaican bobsled team except you all face backwards, and mirrors aren't allowed. I believe it's sponsored by the Darwin awards people.

We ought to have no trouble finding a winning team from the HI forum a'tall, a'tall.

Come to think of it, We'll need Bruise as our fearless leader/point man. That way when we come to an abrupt halt, and all land on top of each other, he'll be on the very bottom.
 
I'm curious to see where this thread goes...but I gotta tell you, Rusty and Ferg, the Wise Man Knows What He Does Not Know-I filled up with that when I was 20. Down with ego. Up with Upanishads.

(Bromides I still have a use for: Wherever you go, there you are. And whatever happens, keep on going.)

I don't know about you guys, (because after all- I just don't know) but I see a convention filled with guys in their 70's who know they know nothing. We could fill football stadiums with them.

That's like the serpent that bit the heel, holding on to that pleasent thought.

There is something I'd like to work into this post, but don't see an opening yet. I like Charles Bukowski's line about an old fashioned beer sh-t.





munk
 
As one of my wise professors said "The more you know, the more you know you dont know, and will never know."

This is well illustrated by Odin's quest for knowledge. He travrels the realms of creation, learns from all manner of beings, and even hangs himself for nine days on the world tree to get the runes. He gives up an eye to the well of mimir, so that he can see the future. He raises witches and vitkis form the dead, and gets them to tell of the future.
Yet even with his knowledge of the future, he is still powerless to find a way to stop his son from being killed by another of his sons, No matter what he and others do to change Balder's orlog (a kind of fate). And, he knows from the beginning of his existence that Ragnarok will come, he will be devoured by the great wolf, and the world will be engulfed in flame, and still he raises an army of gods and fallen warriors (einherjar)to fight the final battle against the chaos of the etins (Giants).

Why does he keep on keepin' on? Because doing/being/learning IS the point. Accumulation of materials, knowledge, etc. is fleeting, it is the journey that is the point.

Odin teaches us this:
The day that you know you will die is the day you begin living.

Keith
 
I still know it all.:rolleyes:

Anyway that's what I tell the kids:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

Actually... a woman loses 30% of her brain with each child she delivers.... I have 3 kids.....and a husband with HIKV.....:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

:footinmou
 
Originally posted by munk
...and pretty soon it's as clear as the sweaty oil on your FACE THAT YOU ACTUALLY KNOW JACK, THAT IS, NOTHING, AND YOU ASK, "OH LORD, DID YOU REALLY LEAVE ME DOWN HERE ALL ALONE WITH SO LITTLE TO HOLD ONTO, COULDN'T YOU HAVE LEFT ME A CRUMB, JUST A LITTLE LIE TO TELL MYSELF EVERY MORNING WHEN I WAKE?"

and the answer comes, no, He couldn't, wouldn't, and you really just don't know much, do you?

No.

I don't.

munk
Click to expand...

And Enlightenment is just around the corner.:D
No, Really and Truly!!!!:D
I personally had this epiphany when I was somewhere between 30 and 35, just never was sure exactly when as the realization came on me slowly, instead of as a load of bricks which was very merciful. I'm pretty sure, after giving it much thought over the years, that I was closer to 35 than 30 though.
The realization didn't bother me terribly as it was just an epiphany, albeit a very large one, and nothing as hurtful as many other things that had happened to me during my short life at the time.
I mean after all I had been told all my life that I was just a stupid dumbass kid and never would amount to anything.
To me the epiphany revealed that I was finally growing up. I was told about 20 years later by an Elder that the Old Ones said a man wasn't fully grown mentally until he was 65. I got a couple more years to reach that point so we'll see.:)

One night here after the 2nd round in the Sweatlodge as we were taking a short break from the intense heat in the Lodge that night a young fellow told me, "Yvsa I don't know if I can make it two more rounds!!!! I feel Totally Drained!!!!"
My answer to him was, "That's good!!!! How can you be filled with the good things the Lodge and The Great Mystery has to offer unless the old and bad things are drained out?"
He went back in and made the last two rounds.:D
As for myself? I still feel drained after the first two rounds and feel truly fulfilled after the last two.
I figure The Great Mystery isn't through teaching me yet, but as I said above, "I got a couple more years to reach that point(65) so we'll see.:)"
I somehow have a feeling that we never stop learning as long as we're drawing breath in this world and whatever takes the place of breathing in the next.
I have been taught and I truly believe there is no such thing as death unless a person personally chooses to become as if they never existed at all.:eek:
Somehow I doubt that many will choose that direction.
And in spite of everything bad or evil in the universe that tickles me to no end!!!!!!!:D :D
 
munk

Have you ever read Stephen Hawking's book "A Brief History of Time"?

I always knew I wasn't the brightest bulb in the chandelier but, after reading that book, I realized just how dim my bulb really was. :confused:
 
Munk, I don't know if you realize it, but you are a little like Charlie Brown in Peanuts. The "everyman". I'm very glad you are around because you ask the questions we all want to know the answers to - and do it very well indeed.

That mean to me that you are a valued member of the forum indeed to me, and I suspect to many others.

Sometimes I'm lucky to have a mind that can work on the problem in background mode. I set things aside and move other things onto the front burner so to speak, and suddenly the answer to the original problem comes to mind. Then again more often than not it doesn't work. If nothing else you make me realize many others are stumbling their way through life also. That forms a bond between those who share of themmselves.

Signing off before I turn maudlin ( or something or other ).
 
I don't know how you'all did it, but somehow the vein you found stayed true and no one hit a single sour note nor a overdrawn 'message'

My neighbor said of himself, "I'm the kind of man who needs to be humbled every now and again." (I know I've quoted this before.)

Return to the ground. There were moments and signature events, but I always return to this. That's a good thing, you've told me.
I liked hearing a man wasn't fully into his mind until 65. I liked the young man who needed to be emptied.

Stephen Hawking scared me. My son wonders why the stars go on- how can there be forever, how can there be things. If you think about that hard enough, you reach the end of your brain and there's a kind of Shudder. Hawking left the Shudders behind a long time ago, the way a drunk discards the Spins.

munk
 
When I was a young man I thought that I knew quite a bit and, my grandfather was the dumbest person in creation. I have to admit he was just mean as hail. He did try to teach me a few things though.
Now he is gone, "God rest his soul" Now that I am a grandfather I'm not sure that I know anything near what he did. But, I can tell you for sure. The longer I was away from home and the farther away I got the smarter that old man got. I figure that a guy can learn all kinds of facts and figures but, what good are they if no one ever taught you to think for yourself. I may be wrong but if a fellar can't think for himself all the facts and figures in the world are pretty useless.
The reason I say that is because, I am not a carpenter but I built this 2000 sq. ft. house. I have already built a two story house and tore it down and started over. I'm not a plumber but I put all the pipes for fresh water in this thing running overhead so I don't have to worry about them freezing in winter the plumbing for the bathrooms was a fun project too. I'm not an electrician either but I bought a book and have done the wiring for myself and some for others.
Thanks to that Old man, a couple of teachers that were my favorites, The Marine Corps too helped me learn to think for myself. Some time when I want to build something I shut my eyes and see the finished project in three D. then I can sit down and make enough of a drawing that I can go ahead and do what I have to do. The drawing lets me know pretty well what materials I will need.

I guess that is enough rambling for tonight.:)
 
I try not to open my mouth too much anymore. I have a bad habit of finding out that I am just putting my foot in it. I try to stick with that old adage, "Better to be silent and have people think I am stupid that to speak and prove it".
 
Reminds me of the old line about the difference between a specialist and a generalist:

The specialist knows more and more about less and less until finally he knows everything about nothing.

The generalist, on the other hand, knows less and less about more and more until, finally, he knows nothing about everything.

Yes, the more answers you find, the more questions you find you need to try to answer.

As for me, I have no answers and I'm still looking for questions.
 
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