Wednesday, May 3, 2017

The Cloud of Unknowing

Look up now, feeble creature, and see what you are.  
- The Cloud of Unknowyng, anonymous, 14th c.

What do we know?
Honestly, almost nothing really useful.
We know a lot about exploiting each other and the environment, how to make war and entertainment, how to construct bubble worlds and get lost in them.  We know a lot about all of that and it's all short-term stuff.
How to live honestly, clear-sightedly - we know almost nothing about that.
It's making us crazy.
If we've made any real progress at all (and it's very uneven), it's that we know that we don't know, even if we don't want to admit it.
It's making us crazy not admitting that we don't know how to live.
It's hard to remember, to keep clear about, because we just get carried along.
To succeed in the short-term, forget about the long-term.
Doesn't that sum it up?  The trap that we keep falling into.
Almost everything we think we know is just rubbish.
"mistaken ideas that were preventing man from using his brains."
A whole lot of that.
It's pretty funny.

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