You Don’t What You Don’t Know

You Don’t What You Don’t Know

RJ Walters

There are some people in this world who are just not opened to the possibility that they don’t know everything about everything. It’s interesting to note that mentality was one of the primary causes of “Early Middle Ages”, otherwise known a the “Dark Ages” between the years 500-1000. Basically, the church, which pretty much ruled the world after the fall of the Roman Empire, declared that everything God intends us to know has already been learned. This basically halted all scientific exploration as well as philosophical studies for a five hundred year period. Yeah, the church was that powerful!

Getting back to today’s “I already know everything” people, global warming can’t be true because they don’t believe it. In other words, if something is too complicated then it’s fake. They too often look for that single “silver bullet” that will cure everything. Everything that can’t be solved with gut feeling or a silver bullet just isn’t solvable to them.

Even if they are not formally educated on the subject they consider themselves to be “street smart” and that is all that matters to them. Many of this category likely make up the MAGA base.

In reality, the more knowledgeable you are the more you realize how much you don’t know. That brings to mind something I learned in my only philosophy course in college. The graphic below illustrates the concept.

The Extent of Knowledge

Just think of the box as the extent of knowledge available to you. The top left corner is what you know. The little box inside that box are the things you think you know but aren’t true. Then comes the bigger box of what you know you don’t know. And finally, there is what you don’t even know that you don’t know. Don’t think of the above as being to scale. In reality, the “what you don’t know you don’t know” will fill a football stadium!

Since I found so many neat illustrations I will leave this post with a few of them.

Getting back to the guy who thinks he is an expert on everything (you know who I am talking about), we must realize that he actually doesn’t know much of anything at all and a big majority of what he thinks he knows is wrong. But, the sad part of all of this is that those MAGA followers are even worse than he is, as they unquestionably believe him!

The Ultimate Freedom

The Ultimate Freedom

RJ Walters

This sounds like a pretty grandiose title, I hope the post lives up to it. 🙂 I’m going to clue you in on what I found the ultimate freedom to be. It took me almost seven decades to find it. At first, it seemed more like a prison than freedom but I have found that misconceived view to be the case in more circumstances than I care to remember.

The ultimate freedom was cloaked in darkness when I first came upon it. It just didn’t look like freedom at first glance. Ok, the wait is over I will now tell you what the ultimate freedom is. Ultimate freedom is when you no longer have to do something just to create money.

Now I guess I have to explain my personal circumstances in order to support my dark pre-story.

I left the corporate world at fifty-five. After I got my thirty years in and was eligible for a full pension, my corporate division was sold to a Chinese company. We were told that nothing would change, but of course, within six months massive layoffs started. Within a year 95% were gone, including me.

All my life I had lived pretty frugally so I had enough resources along with the fixed pension and future social security payments to be able to live without any additional income. But, as is often the case, I refused to understand what that freedom could give me. It would be several years later before I fully realized what was in front of me.

When I finally went into the full retirement mode six years after leaving the corporate world, the idea of having total control of my time absolutely scared me. The main reason for that is that I didn’t do the work required to really appreciate what I had. Instead, I languished around as pretty much a couch potato for a couple of years feeling sorry for myself and the self-imposed boredom that followed.

Finally, I got it through my head to actually use this ultimate freedom. I finally started doing some things that I had only dreamed about up to then. One was to be a frequent volunteer at a local soup kitchen. Another was to start a blog about my view of the world. I had always enjoyed writing and now I could do whatever I wanted with that skill. Other things would eventually fall in place, but it was not until a few months ago that I decided to try and take my ultimate freedom to a whole other level.

I actually spent the time thinking and dreaming of what I could now do that wasn’t really possible before. That brought up a lot of hidden, or maybe unrealized goals that need to be further pursued. Finally, when 2019 dawned I decided to bring up yet another blog, this one dedicated to creativity. I am now about forty-seven days into this year-long project of becoming a more creative person. If this sort of thing appeals to you, I would like to invite you to come along on my journey. I think we can both learn if we do this together. Click on the CrackingCreativity logo in the right column here to join the fun.

How about you, what is your definition of Ultimate Freedom?

My Battle With FaceBook

My Battle With FaceBook

RJ Walters

I suspect some of my readers remember that I have been having a battle with FaceBook. When I log in I get this long list of “Friend Recommendations” that are mostly very scantily clad young females with strange names. I used to “X” them out but that did no good, they would be back the next time I logged in.

I was considering just dropping Facebook but that is my only source for keeping up with some of my long ago friends. I complained to FaceBook on several occasions but never got a reply. And then I got an idea…

My profile describes me as a 70+-year-old male, what if I changed that? What I did was to now proclaim I am female and that worked! Within a couple of days the young undressed female friends recommendations stopped. Now I am getting mostly older fully clothed females as possible friends and all the ads on the right side of the page are for women’s shoes and such. If that is the price I must pay then so be it.

I know FaceBook is famous for selling their member database to anyone with enough money. I also know the erotica is big business. Maybe that is how it happened? Another possibility is that one of my current “friends” is an erotica buff with all those girls as part of his mammoth friends list. I did eliminate a few of my old high school classmates who are now MAGA folks as I was tired of their daily post about the great job their hero is doing.

Either way, I’m glad that won the battle. You can call me Ms. Walters if you want, I really don’t care 🙂

About Fear

About Fear

RJ Walters

I love the banner for today’s post. Yeah, the more you know the less you fear and the more you realize that fear gets you nowhere, except for the case when you might be standing in the middle of a road and watching a Mack truck heading down on you. (ha).

It seems that “fear” has become our national pastime. Everywhere you look people are trying to convince you that bad guys are invading our country when the facts say otherwise. The current Oval Office occupant would have you believe that bad guys are charging across our borders with the intent of raping all our young girls. But, if you study the facts you will know that not to be the case. In fact, illegal border crossings are drastically lower than even ten years ago, and the vast majority of them are women with children trying to escape the carnage of their country of birth. The more you know, the less you fear.

All you have to do to be convinced that we are a country full of fear is to look at a typical day’s TV shows. It seems that NCIS-LA, for example, kills at least a dozen terrorist every week. That show, of course, is just the tip of the iceberg. Go to Netflix and count all the movies about terrorism and bad guys! I guess fear of terrorists is a pretty profitable staple for the movie and TV media and that fact alone could make someone paranoid. But, study how many foreign terrorists have invaded since 9/11 and you will find that the local variety of terrorists far far outnumber the ones who invade our country.

Two of my ten pillars are about learning the truth and questioning everything. Don’t just take for granted what you see in front of you or especially what some habitually lying person who doesn’t deserve an ounce of your trust tells you to believe. If you believe the facts instead of liars you will see there is less to fear than you fear.

Fear is kinda like hate, it can consume you if you let it. Shed that unnecessary fear and see more joyful things that will replace it. Turn off that TV once in a while and enjoy the other 99.9% of life around you.

The more you know, the less you fear.

Taking Offense… Being Too Sensitive

Taking Offense… Being Too Sensitive

RJ Walters

I see where Elizabeth Warren has now apologized for saying that she has Native American roots? Her DNA test proved that she has ancestors who were Native American so what’s the problem?

Well, it seems that some Native American tribes take offense to her; they are saying a bloodline is not the same as tribal membership. I can understand that but I don’t think she ever claimed to be a tribal member. Does it means that I can’t be proud of my Native American roots because I personally am not a member of an established tribe, I think that takes away much more than it might contribute to the conversation. I think the critics are being too sensitive.

On a personal level, I don’t claim to be part of the Deaf Culture but I most assuredly claim to be deaf. It is true that I don’t have any exposure to deaf organizations and I certainly don’t claim that. Is it offensive for me to proclaim I am deaf but not be associated with Deaf Culture? Is it child abuse to do something to allow a deaf child to hear? Some in the Deaf Culture believe so. They say that we would be denying the child his deaf culture. I think the critics are being too sensitive.

I have Aspie traits but have never been officially diagnosed to have Asperger’s Syndrome. Is that offensive to those who have been clinically diagnosed? I hope not, but I can imagine that to be in at least some cases. It is estimated that more than ninety percent of people with Aspie traits have never sought treatment or diagnosis for those traits. In spite of the negative view of autism, I am proud to claim that I am a unique individual who copes pretty well and even deem my Aspie traits to be more positive than negative.

Getting back to the point of this post, I see where Kamala Harris is now apologizing for some of the things that made her a successful prosecutor. It seems she threatened a homeless person with jail time because of a truancy issue. Never mind that tactic is used thousands of times a day by prosecutors in order to get people to obey the law and therefore not have to move against them legally. She was doing it for the good for the person. I think the critics are being too sensitive.

And now there is the Virginia Governor who appeared “black face” in a drinking party almost forty years ago and was unfortunate enough to get his picture taken next to a guy in a KKK hood. Yes, that was a stupid thing to do but does it ameliorate everything he has accomplished since that day. What happened to the idea of forgiveness?

I think that we just might be destroying the Democratic party for the sake of sometimes over-sensitiveness. If one mistake, even if it was commonplace in the past, prevents you from becoming a public servant who is left to serve? We all live in glass houses.

Just because the Republican Party has become the party condoning lies, contempt, and seemingly without any moral values doesn’t mean that the Democrats have to go in the exact opposite direction. I think the critics are being too sensitive.

This N’ That- Sunday Morning… Feb 10, 2019

RJ Walters

Laptops In The College Lecture Halls

When I was in college in the 1960s it took me a few years to learn that taking strenuous notes during lectures was actually worse than just listening to what the professor was saying. One of the reasons behind that is that I most often couldn’t read my quickly scribbled note more than a week after the event. So, it was not a big surprise for me to learn that students who paid more attention to their laptops than what the professor was saying, actually got lower scores on their exams.

New York Times

But a growing body of evidence shows that over all, college students learn less when they use computers or tablets during lectures. They also tend to earn worse grades. The research is unequivocal: Laptops distract from learning, both for users and for those around them. It’s not much of a leap to expect that electronics also undermine learning in high school classrooms or that they hurt productivity in meetings in all kinds of workplaces.

Source: New York Times

It’s funny how one generation has to almost always learn from the same mistakes as previous generations.

About President’s Birth Places

It was surprising to learn which States the presidents have come from. During my investigation of the possibility of backing Kamala Harris, who is a senator from California I learned that no Democrat who was born or raised in California has occupied the Oval Office. Here is a list from to show that:

source: Smart Politics

As shown, Nixon was born there and Reagan lived there for a while but he was not born there. Being that California is almost always Democratic stronghold, they don’t count anyway. 🙂 Maybe Kamala will be the first. Since California has almost one-third of the total US population, it’s about time they can claim a president who wasn’t forced out of office.

I Miss My Dog

I want to end this post with a thought about Beulah. She was a Basset Hound who, like so many others, was abandoned on our country road. We took her in and she proved once again that dogs are the only creatures on this earth who really give unconditional love. I liked to call Beulah my shadow as she was seldom more than a few paces away from me. We decided not the get another dog as he would likely outlive us. But sometimes I really regret that decision. Dexter our cat, who is bugging me as I type these words, is ok but they can never claim the loyalty of a dog. I MISS YOU BEULAH!!

Me and Beulah on one of our daily walks (with Dexter following close behind)