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Oct 13, 2002 I decided to take this web site to it’s core business in this article. You walk to the bakery to buy some bread, and arriving there you find out that you forgot your wallet. Now that is strange. How come you forget your wallet when you go out to buy a loaf. You never forget your wallet when you go out to buy clothes. But for a simple bread the chance that you forget your wallet is much bigger. How come the brain doesn’t seem to be that interested in paying for bread and very interested in paying for clothes? Maybe you should consider another bakery. I used to read the Donald Duck. You know, that little magazine about that funny duck that always gets in trouble, with those 3 little nephews, etc. When I was a kid, one day I noticed something that really got my brain to stop functioning. I noticed something that made no sense what so ever, and I wonder if Disney ever noticed it him self. Maybe you noticed it too,.. He NEVER wears pants,.. Sure,.. when it is cold,.. he wears a Russian hat on is head. When he goes fishing he wears those big water boots. But he never, ever wears pants, EXCEPT,… and this is really outrageous,… except when goes out to swim,.. then all the sudden he is wearing swimming pants,.. Can you imagine that? A duck with swimming pants???? That is like a fish with diving gear,.. to name something. We sleep 8 hours a day, including lunch and traveling to and from work we spend about 10 hours a day working. We need to get dressed and have breakfast in the morning, and we need to have dinner,.. another 2 hours a day. We need to go to the bathroom, in total half an hour a day, we need to shower and change clothes,.. at least half an hour more if you don’t include the morning. That's already 21 hours a day that you're busy with things that have not that much to do with fun. Leaves us with 3 hours a day to do something else. What do most of us do in those 3 hours? Watch tv? I guess that's it. Damn,.. is this all we are about? We are free,.. but not from our habits. Talking about habits,.. have you ever noticed how many things you do the same way, every day. Just think of all the things you do from the moment you wake up until the moment you leave the house. And then notice that you do practically everything in the same order, every day! And think of how grumpy you get when, for what ever reason, that ritual is being broken. Your whole day may be lost just because there is no milk in the fridge, or because you had to go shower before going to the bathroom, or the newspaper was 20 minutes later than the usual, etc. Why we are so very ritual like a computer, and why don’t we know it? Maybe it is because our brains are nothing more than a very very complex computer. If knowledge is useless, is it really knowledge? Can something that is known be completely useless? Interesting question,… and to be honest I don’t know the answer. I wonder if there ever were any great philosophers that asked them selves this question. Socrates once said: "To know is to know that you know nothing" Hmm, that’s pretty useless I would say, but I can’t say that because Socrates said it. I hope I could manage to get to the core of this web site. If anybody can answer the last question, please feel free to write about it. ------------ Peter Faber is Dutch and has recently moved to Brazil. Visit Peter's website. Email Peter: getting_there@uol.com.br Comment on this column in the forum. ------------ |
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