Night Wisdom

To be surprised, to wonder, is to begin to understand.

Jose Ortega y Gasset
************************
We are all space ships that never land. Any one who claims and embraces an idea, a book, a ritual, a practice, a system of thought or a theory of life, who comfortably believes it is the whole truth and who refuses to consider or even listen to an opposite or evolving pattern of thinking is in a room with no doors.

"Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge." Psalms 19. We are very fortunate creatures because we have the ability to be confused. It is the darkness of doubt and uncertainty where we groan and strain and strive for answers that wisdom is truly found.

In the occasional dark night of the soul the real essence of who we are is brought to the examination table and it is viewed under a powerful microscope. That is where the dirt and cobwebs of ignorance, despair and fear are wiped away.

The readership fo this journal has dropped so low that I am at the point of closing it down and taking my vagabond journey somewhere else.. And yet I know that many who are not reading my journal are exactly the people who need to hear what I have to say. I have been in that dark night of the soul many times in my life. I am one who used to believe firmly in a system of thought and rules for living and working. I was repeatedly brought to my knees in front of a deity I didn't understand. I tried to harmonize my life to one of the various gods that emerge from divinity schools and I failed.

I found trails through the wilderness, some easy, some rough, in philosophy because it doesn't tell me what to think but enables me to think for myself, to think originally. Nothing in this mortal life is ever settled. There is constant change, reevaluation, reinvention. "Weeping may endure for a night but joy cometh in the morning" the old hymn says.

The joy that comes to me is knowing that I don't have to accept as truth any incomplete theory, that I don't have to close the door on discovery, that I can be amazed, that I can throw out old ideas when better ideas open their petals in the daylight, that I can be patient with my ignorance and vigorous with my striving. I can be at home in the endless space of reality.

I say to those who are not reading me today "Drop your silly pretence at spoon fed wisdom and join the rest of us in the brotherhood and sisterhood of the perplexed and beware those who have found the truth."

DB - The Vagabond
************************

WEEKEND PUZZLE

Here we go.

A man is walking down the street and comes upon a store that sells coconuts. He goes in and buys half the coconuts in the store plus half a coconut. When he gets home his wife shakes her head and wonders what she's going to do with all those coconuts.

He gets an idea and goes out and buys a bottle of rum. But on the way he passes the same store with the coconuts, goes in and buys half the coconuts in the store plus half a coconut. When he gets home his wife has opened one of the coconuts and is ready to make a nice cocktail with the juice.

The man is so delighted that he goes out again and buys half the coconuts in the store plus half a coconut. Upon returning home he finds his wife has made them some delicious rum and coconut cocktails.

He drinks one which inspires him to go to the store again and buy half the coconuts in the store plus half a coconut. When he leaves the store that time there are no coconuts left. No one else bought any coconuts. They're all kiwi or papaya freaks or something. Who knows.

Back home he and his wife have a very pleasant evening drinking their rum and coconut cocktails.

"You poot thee rum in thee coconautt and than yoo dahnce cahleepsoh.

Questions: How many coconuts were there in the store when he went in the first time?

Goog lub.
DB
*******************