Diminutive Disperser Post No. 2 – Wood, Snow, a bit on Wisdom

Sometimes, I chance upon things not big enough to merit one of my lengthy posts, hence, this here diminutive post. As you can guess by the number, there may be more to come.

As I’m walking around — or even linearly — I’ll notice something and I snap a photo. Such was the case with the above.

I did not notice the small fruit resting on the piece of wood. It was a detail I happily discovered after the fact.  

Truthfully, I snapped this photo because I planned on a B&W shot. Here it is  . . . 

Both those photos are worth clicking on for the larger version (double in size). Eventually, when I have enough of these posts, I will have an associated SmugMug Gallery for the Diminutive Post’s photos. 

Now, two photos for one post seems lacking the reward one expects when clicking on a post of mine. As luck would have it, I was looking at a few photos from my old house and I decided to play with a bit of Impression and Simplify.

Perhaps people on the mainland are tired of snow in its various incarnations. Oh, well.

~ ~ ~ o o o ~ ~ ~

Wisdom . . . I mention it in the title because it is on my mind. One of the definitions I’ve read has wisdom as “the soundness of an action or decision with regard to the application of experience, knowledge, and good judgment.”

In that sentence, the term that — to me — has more import than the others is “knowledge”. Knowledge, for me, is a presumption of truth consistent with available evidence, and without it, one can’t really trust experience or be assured of good judgment. 

Belief is sometimes conflated with knowledge. You will hear someone say “I know this or that to be true” when what they actually mean is “I believe this or that to be true”.  

The difference is huge. So huge that people have trouble grasping it.

Belief is the presumption of truth even when faced with contrary evidence. 

Belief often counters not only knowledge itself but also thrives in the lack of knowledge, finding shelter behind the mantle of ignorance, there festering unchallenged.  

But challenged it has been. For centuries and by humans who often paid a steep price for having done so, but whose actions ultimately advanced the progress of civilization in small but sure steps. 

I mention all this because I wonder about a few things . . . 

Can someone be wise when they do not know — or won’t accept or even acknowledge — this huge difference between knowledge and belief?

Can someone obtain wisdom from sources that consistently have been shown to misrepresent what we witness and are at odds with what we know? 

I mention all this because there are areas of activities where one pays little to no price for literally lying to people. One appears to be politics. Not just in our own time, but through recorded history, we see example after example of leaders and statesmen lying to get into power and lying to stay in power. The other is religion, where beliefs are held even when they are in conflict with what we absolutely know as facts. 

I mention all this because I get worried when these two areas of activity intermingle as they are doing right now. 

That’s it. This post has ended . . . except for the stuff below.

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. . .  my FP ward  . . . chieken shit.

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