A lot of thoughts are swimming around in my mind this midday. I'm convinced it's a byproduct of living in Florida or any semi-tropical climate/dry dessert. It could be that my mind has always run at a thousand miles a minute. Either way, the heat doesn't help anyone focus. That last sentence is actually true. There is a sickness akin to high altitude edema caused by high heat where your mind can't focus on one task as it is trying to figure out why the hell you are (me) outside spreading dirt piles around in 90 degree (real feel 103) heat. Your mind's logic center is all, 'do it when it's cooler,' but your adult brain with a mounting to-do list says, 'just get it done.' So you do, then for the next hour, you write a seemingly random blog post about heat and how it affects your brain.
But, that aside, while I was working outside (spreading the dirt around), I got to thinking about politics, life, love, the existential crisis of our existence, you know, the good crap we used to sit around coffee shops late at night waxing intellectual about with our friends. As those thoughts sauntered about my brain, a line from one of my favorite movies ever crossed my mind. A young man (who's actually ten years older than me) named Matt Damon once said, "You people baffle me. You spend all this money on beautiful, fancy books-- and they're the wrong fuckin' books." To which another great actor, Robin Williams playing Sean, responds with, "What are the right fuckin' books, Will?" But the vital part of this isn't Will's first line or Sean's response; it is Will's answer to Sean's question. "Whatever blows your hair back."
It is not that Will Hunting knows it all. Though his character would never admit such a thing as demonstrated in his dialog throughout the movie. But what is important in this is what it reveals. That he can acknowledge that a problem exists, he does not have an answer, and while not admitting that he doesn't know, he also won't give some definitive answer that might be wrong.
At this point, between the dirt piles, heat sickness, and a movie from 1998, you are probably trying to tie it together. Here's the rub. One led to another; they are not tied together in any other way than it's how I arrived at the following. We live in a world of more misinformation than information. We have to be able to discern one from the other, and most people will think they are proficient at doing so. Which is fine, believe that as you will. But whichever side you are on, we all know that problems exist—as in the above example, buying the wrong books. So, when we meet with others, whether they are cut from the same cloth, or live on the opposite side of the tracks, arrive only with the acknowledgment that problems exist. Arrive at round table discussions with the understanding that whatever solutions you have begun to work out in your head are only one possible solution and, most likely, a flawed solution that still needs improvement.
This world becomes a harder place to live in with each passing day. Learning to think outside of your comfort zone, learning to discern misinformation from information, learning to empty your cup that might be runneth over can only help make this ever-changing world a little easier to understand and live in. I am not saying I have any answers. "They're the wrong books," is still the best I can come up with. But I know this, that for all I know, I don't know more. For all I know I don't know, there are immeasurable amounts more that I don't know I don't know. So, stay humble, stay kind, stay wonderful, and never stop striving to be a better version of yourself. It will help you find your happiness.
Which, of course, brings me to the illusion of happiness, but that is for another post.
Comments