I read this rather bizarre article today in a local business journal. The author was attempting to understand why the economy is the way it is, what caused it and how it can become better. Quite an undertaking on his part, to explain all that to the masses in less than a page.
Only he couldn’t. He’s found the more research he does and the more he learns, the more confused he becomes because there’s so much conflicting information available, all penned by so called experts. At one point he paraphrased Darwin, the more ignorant a person is, the more certain of their opinions they are. Yeah, I get that one. I’ve often fallen back on the adage of speak clearly and firmly and sound like you know and very few will ever know the difference. It’s amazed me no end what nonsense can be spewed only to have others take it as fact, simply because I sounded rational and confident.
He went on to quote A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. I’ll share it with you because it has me convinced I need to read this book. From a chapter about Quarks and particles: “The upshot of all this is that we live in a universe whose age we cannot quite compute, surrounded by stars whose distances we don’t altogether know, filled with matter we can’t identify, operating in conformance to physical laws whose properties we don’t truly understand.” Think about that statement for a moment, if you will, and you should understand why I like it so much. He then added that the experts quoted in the book concluded that the universe was mostly composed of DUNNOS (Dark Unknown Nonreflective Nondetectable Objects). I find that truly funny, don’t you? No? That’s fine. It’s always okay to disagree with me though I do wish you’d express your thoughts, at least occasionally.
In the end, with all of the confusion that kept expanding on him exponentially, one of the options for weathering the current economic storm that he found worth considering was to sit down, have a beer and wait for it to pass. Or, as he put it, don’t just do something, stand there.
Only he couldn’t. He’s found the more research he does and the more he learns, the more confused he becomes because there’s so much conflicting information available, all penned by so called experts. At one point he paraphrased Darwin, the more ignorant a person is, the more certain of their opinions they are. Yeah, I get that one. I’ve often fallen back on the adage of speak clearly and firmly and sound like you know and very few will ever know the difference. It’s amazed me no end what nonsense can be spewed only to have others take it as fact, simply because I sounded rational and confident.
He went on to quote A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. I’ll share it with you because it has me convinced I need to read this book. From a chapter about Quarks and particles: “The upshot of all this is that we live in a universe whose age we cannot quite compute, surrounded by stars whose distances we don’t altogether know, filled with matter we can’t identify, operating in conformance to physical laws whose properties we don’t truly understand.” Think about that statement for a moment, if you will, and you should understand why I like it so much. He then added that the experts quoted in the book concluded that the universe was mostly composed of DUNNOS (Dark Unknown Nonreflective Nondetectable Objects). I find that truly funny, don’t you? No? That’s fine. It’s always okay to disagree with me though I do wish you’d express your thoughts, at least occasionally.
In the end, with all of the confusion that kept expanding on him exponentially, one of the options for weathering the current economic storm that he found worth considering was to sit down, have a beer and wait for it to pass. Or, as he put it, don’t just do something, stand there.
3 comments:
I have to get that book. It sounds hysterical. And congrats on the new reelase.
Helen
Happy release day, hon! I find it interesting and rather amazing this guy thought he could explain it all in a one page article.
Happy Release day! I have my copy ready for the weekend!
And I think I need that book, too.
Post a Comment