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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 315
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 315 |
(talking to the very old Count Greffi)
You never seem old
It is the body that is old. Sometimes I am afraid I will break off a finger as one breaks a stick of chalk. And the spirit is no older and not much wiser.
You are wise
No, that is the great fallacy; the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.
Perhaps that is wisdom.
It is a very unattractive wisdom. What do you value most?
Some one I love.
With me it is the same. That is not wisdom....
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 247
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 247 |
What do you value most? Someone I love. That is not wisdom ...
If that is not wisdom, Emanuela, it is a lot closer to it than anything I can come up with.
BTW I would have thought that old age would make a sensible person less, not more, careful, because they have less time to accomplish whatever is left for them to accomplish.
If there is nothing left to accomplish, what reason to get up in the morning?
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 315
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 315 |
but simply a quotation from Hemingway.
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Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 247
enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2001
Posts: 247 |
but simply a quotation from Hemingway
True, but it's what you took from Hemingway. [It tolls for you.]
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Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526 |
It's hard for human beings to believe that "no" is as useful as "yes" when it comes to information
You're absolutely correct that 1) yes and no are both useful things to know and 2) people frequently have trouble believing that.
k
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Joined: Jan 2002
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jan 2002
Posts: 1,526 |
It's very hard to remind yourself every day that someone has to investigate what turn out to be dead ends
It's a very interesting point you raise here, Bean. I got into a very long protracted argument on the net once with a person who maintained (among inumerable other nonsense) that all falsehoods were lies and all lies were bad.
There's an interesting bit in Popper's "Objective Knowledge" though where he says that there's a real danger in rejecting false theories too soon - before we've gleaned everything we can from them.
I was involved a few years ago on the periphery of a very intruiging project. The other teams were doing real research, but my boss insisted that I get around all that research by getting right to some valuable insight. I tried to tell him that it doesn't work like that. I'm a big believer in serendipity, but that comes about when people are immersed in something - making mistakes and learning from them. Getting right to the point without getting immersed in the subject and making bad guesses, etc., is a crazy goal. I tried to explain that he was asking me to get insight prior to experience, but it fell on deaf ears.
k
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Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,154
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 2,154 |
How frustrating. Sounds to me like the meteorite theory of scientific discovery. All the ideas, inventions and revelations are floating around out there and if you are lucky enough to be in the right place one will fall on you. No effort required.
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Joined: Dec 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
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No effort required
Nuh-uh. Plenty effort required. Just 99.999% of it isn't going to get you any prizes.
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Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 67
journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Apr 2003
Posts: 67 |
Thanks emanuela!! This was it! Wordminstrel, the discussion about the relation between age and wisdom, earlier in this thread, had reminded me of this passage in 'Farewell to Arms,' and I had requested folks to pinpoint it for me if they had access to the book... So it isn't exactly what emanuela 'took' from Hemingway... not for herself anyway... 
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