[Image: panel excerpted from “Slobbering Like Pavlov’s Dog: A Neurocomic,” by Matteo Farinella
and Hana Ros. To see the three-panel portion of the comic of which this is a part, click on the image.
For the whole thing, head on over to The Nib.]
From whiskey river:
A whole lot of us go through life assuming that we are basically right, basically all the time, about basically everything: about our political and intellectual convictions, our religious and moral beliefs, our assessment of other people, our memories, our grasp of facts. As absurd as it sounds when we stop to think about it, our steady state seems to be one of unconsciously assuming that we are very close to omniscient.
(Kathryn Schulz [source])
…and (italicized lines):
Miracle Fair
Commonplace miracle:
that so many commonplace miracles happen.An ordinary miracle:
in the dead of night
the barking of invisible dogs.One miracle out of many:
a small, airy cloud
yet it can block a large and heavy moon.Several miracles in one:
an alder tree reflected in the water,
and that it’s backwards left to right
and that it grows there, crown down
and never reaches the bottom,
even though the water is shallow.An everyday miracle:
winds weak to moderate
turning gusty in storms.First among equal miracles:
cows are cows.Second to none:
just this orchard
from just that seed.A miracle without a cape and top hat:
scattering white doves.A miracle, for what else could you call it:
today the sun rose at three-fourteen
and will set at eight-o-one.A miracle, less surprising than it should be:
even though the hand has fewer than six fingers,
it still has more than four.A miracle, just take a look around:
the world is everywhere.An additional miracle, as everything is additional:
the unthinkable
is thinkable.
(Wislawa Szymborska [source; I have used this one before, although not on a Friday])
..and:
The range of the human mind, the scale and depth of the metaphors the mind is capable of manufacturing as it grapples with the universe, stand in stunning contrast to the belief that there is only one reality, which is man’s, or worse, that only one culture among the many on earth possesses the truth.
To allow mystery, which is to say to yourself, “There could be more, there could be things we don’t understand,” is not to damn knowledge. It is to take a wider view. It is to permit yourself an extraordinary freedom: someone else does not have to be wrong in order that you may be right.
(Barry López [source])
Not from whiskey river:
You’re the Top
Of all the people that I’ve ever known
I think my grandmother Bernice
would be best qualified to be beside me nowdriving north of Boston in a rented car
while Cole Porter warbles on the radio;
Only she would be trivial and un-politically correct enough to totally enjoy
the rhyming of Mahatma Ghandi
with Napoleon brandy;and she would understand, from 1948,
the miracle that once was cellophane,
which Porter rhymes with night in Spain.She loved that image of the high gay life
where people dressed by servants
turned every night into the Ritz:dancing through a shower of just
uncorked champagne
into the shelter of a dry martini.When she was 70 and I was young
I hated how a life of privilege
had kept her ignorance intactabout the world beneath her pretty feet,
how she believed that people with good manners
naturally had yachts, knew how to waltzand dribbled French into their sentences
like salad dressing. My liberal adolescent rage
was like a righteous fist back thenthat wouldn’t let me rest,
but I’ve come far enough from who I was
to see her as she saw herself:a tipsy debutante in 1938,
kicking off a party with her shoes;
launching the lipstick-red high heel
from her elegant big toeinto the orbit of a chandelier
suspended in a lyric by Cole Porter,
bright and beautiful and useless.
(Tony Hoagland [source])
…and:
All scientific knowledge is uncertain. This experience with doubt and uncertainty is important. I believe that it is of very great value, and one that extends beyond the sciences. I believe that to solve any problem that has never been solved before, you have to leave the door to the unknown ajar. You have to permit the possibility that you do not have it exactly right…
If we were not able or did not desire to look in any new direction, if we did not have a doubt or recognize ignorance, we would not get any new ideas. There would be nothing worth checking, because we would know what is true. So what we call scientific knowledge today is a body of statements of varying degrees of certainty. Some of them are most unsure; some of them are nearly sure; but none is absolutely certain. Scientists are used to this. We know that it is consistent to be able to live and not know. Some people say, “How can you live without knowing?” I do not know what they mean. I always live without knowing. That is easy. How you get to know is what I want to know.
(Richard Feynman [source, but also see source])
…and:
Bottled Water
I go to the corner liquor store
for a bottle of water, middle
of a hectic day, must get out
of the office, stop making decisions,
quit obsessing does my blue skirt clash
with my hot pink flats; should I get
my mother a caregiver or just put her
in a home, and I pull open the glass
refrigerator door, am confronted
by brands—Arrowhead, Glitter Geyser,
Deer Park, spring, summer, winter water,
and clearly the bosses of bottled water:
Real Water and Smart Water—how different
will they taste? If I drink Smart Water
will I raise my IQ but be less authentic?
If I choose Real Water will I no longer
deny the truth, but will I attract confused,
needy people who’ll take advantage
of my realness by dumping their problems
on me, and will I be too stupid to help them
sort through their murky dilemmas?
I take no chances, buy them both,
sparkling smart, purified real, drain both bottles,
look around to see is anyone watching?
I’m now brilliantly hydrated.
Both real and smart my insides bubble
with compassion and intelligence
as I walk the streets with a new swagger,
knowing the world is mine.
(Kim Dower [source])
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