The Boss (2010)
“This photographic thing has changed the entire vision of the world. It will go through every activity of humanity — science, medicine, space, ESP, for peace, against peace, entertainment, television, movies, all of them — you will not find one without photography.” -Lisette Model
[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Clickbait lists are especially good at spreading pseudo-science and fear mongering. Lists such as “10 Foods You Shouldn’t Eat” and “5 Big Companies You Can’t Trust” do more harm than good, destroying any trust we have in our fellow man. Personally, I tend to defer a number of issues to those smarter than me; a lot smarter than me. I’m not talking about the “four out of five” ratio, but more like 99 of 100, and only the really intelligent thinkers among those. They tend to be unanimous on a number of issues the rest of us still waste time arguing about. Here are a few such examples.
Humans Cause Climate Change
For the smartest people in the world, this is a no-brainer. They stopped arguing about it 40 years ago and have been focusing their attention where it belongs: finding a solution. Is this a convenient fact? No. Does a solution likely involve a dramatic shift in the way some industries do business? Yes. Is there any reason is should be limited by political belly-aching? No. The argument has been over a long time. Move forward.
You’re Only As Good As The People Around You
Smart people surround themselves with smart people and make every effort to bring those people up to their level. Very little is achieved working alone and doing great things that change the world requires everyone on the team be at the top of their game. Really smart people know that and manage their teams by teaching them and encouraging to learn more and develop their skills. Is there any reason we all shouldn’t take that approach? No, there isn’t.
Don’t Just Focus On One Thing
Just as you were likely taught to not put all your eggs in one basket, focusing on only one thing at a time is rarely a good idea, either. Really smart people know that our brains are designed to multi-task and need stimulus from a number of different directions in order to operate most efficiently. Science and music work remarkably well, for example, as do business and sports. Even within a general industry, focusing on multiple projects, having more than one ball in the air, keeps our minds more alert and creative.
Evolution Happens
The smartest people in the world just assume the rest of us know this and laugh and scoff when encountering someone who’s not on board. They understand the amount of evidence accumulated at this point is too high for there to be any alternative. They’ve known this for well over a hundred years now. That anyone is still arguing the point is rather like saying one would rather believe in magic than science. Governments that promote magic rather than real education are ultimately enslaving their people.[/one_half]
[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]
Artificial Intelligence Is Scary
Really smart people do have fears and the one that bothers the smartest, from Elon Musk to Stephen Hawking, is Artificial Intelligence (AI). We’re talking about something much more advanced than your smart phone, though. Â What bothers them is giving a device the ability to make changes and adjustments based upon its input without direct human interference. While it’s nice to have devices doing the thinking for us, eventually they figure out they don’t need us. We need to proceed carefully.
Vaccinations Are Important
Want to entice a really smart person to smack you? Tell them you don’t believe in vaccinations. Really smart people know that vaccinations save lives. How many lives we can’t know because the people who were vaccinated never became ill in the first place! What we do know is that in parts of the world where vaccinations don’t happen disease is far more rampant and much more difficult to control. The whole anti-vaccination movement is based on something proven to be a lie. Get your immunizations now.
Most GMOs Are Safe … And Necessary
Again, pseudo-science and outright lies spread across the Internet have done a great disservice is causing us to distrust our food sources. Don’t like Genetically Modified Organisms? Put down that strawberry; they wouldn’t exist without genetic modification. Stop eating asparagus; its current form is almost unrecognizable from the little annoying weed it once was. Same is true for a number of foods one now laughably sees marketed as organic. Really smart people know that to feed the seven billion plus people in the world, we need food that can adapt to being grown in a variety of climates and soils. Without GMOs, we’re all going to starve.
Just Because It Hasn’t Been Proven Doesn’t Mean It Isn’t True
Really smart people understand there are some things we will never know (because we can’t go back in time) and some things we don’t yet have the ability to know. They’re okay with that because the preponderance of evidence points to a single solution. Really smart people are also okay with Truth not being an absolute. Truth once said that the universe revolved around the Earth. As our ability to understand and observe the universe changed, so did Truth. This is why they use the word theory; it is the Truth as we are able to understand it at this moment.
Really smart people agree on a lot of things. Maybe we should listen.[/one_half_last]
Pain
Attic Fashion (2011). Model: Sarah Harris. Hair & Makeup: Christopher Thompson. Styling: Tiffany Gilstrap Scott.
Without pain, there would be no suffering, without suffering we would never learn from our mistakes. To make it right, pain and suffering is the key to all windows, without it, there is no way of life.—Angelina Jolie
[one_half padding=”4px 10px 0 4px”]Humans are designed with a built-in warning device called pain. We feel it soon after we are detached from our mother’s umbilical cord. Hunger is our first experience with pain. We cry and someone feeds us. The pain is our body’s way of telling us that something isn’t working correctly, that a part of us needs attention. Yet, as a society we are intolerant of pain and just as we remove the batteries from smoke detectors so that we don’t have to put up with the screeching sound going off at unexpected moments, we try to mask or cover or ignore the pain we feel. We shove the pain into our emotional attic and try to forget that it exists.
As young children, we are taught that expressing our feelings of pain is not acceptable. “Walk it off.” “Suck it up.” “No pain, no gain.” Our intent is to dissuade children from complaining about every little insignificant boo-boo they encounter. “If it’s not bleeding, you don’t need a bandage.” The longer-term effect, though, is that from those very early moments we teach children that feeling and expressing pain is a bad thing. No one wants to hear about your pain. Ignore it and it will go away. Be tough and play through the pain.
Often, however, that strategy backfires on us. My father’s youngest sister succumbed to cancer perhaps sooner than was necessary because she chose to treat the pain, not the cause. Rather than being consistent with the chemotherapy, she chose alternative treatments that only covered up the pain. Only when the pain became intolerable did she return to her doctor, and by then the cancer had spread too for treatment to be effective. She didn’t even communicate to her family that anything was wrong until the pain became debilitating. She didn’t want them to worry. She had seven children and wanted to put pain aside to care for them. While her attitude might seem noble, in the end it took her from them sooner than might have been necessary.[/one_half]
[one_half_last padding=”4px 4px 0 10px”]Part of our problem in dealing with pain is that we look at it as an inconvenience and a bother rather than the warning system it is. When, as a child, we first encounter something hot and we pull back from it, learn to treat it with some respect and don’t touch it again without taking appropriate precaution to not burn ourselves. That is an appropriate response to pain. Consider what causes the problem. Fix it, if possible. Respect what caused the pain and then take steps to not repeat the pain again. Yet, we don’t apply that formula too often once we pass the age of five. We prefer to ignore the pain and keep going.
Philosopher/poet Kahlil Gibran penned these wise words:
As we get older, pain becomes a more constant part of our reality. There are some pains, both physical and emotional, that will never go away no matter what we do. Â Our challenge is to not look at our pain as an inconvenience, but rather an opportunity to learn.[/one_half_last]
Share this:
Like this: