For me, there are terms that are tossed around without clearly being defined, at least at the level where it's being put to use. Intelligence, wisdom, experience, maturity, and more. I'd like to start this blog by giving my personal definitions – these definitions are debatable, but for this discussion, they are my standard. I think that intelligence is acquired knowledge – learning a statistic, a date, or a procedure. Experience is intelligence acquired over a longer period of time, but a form of intelligence all the same. Wisdom would be intelligence applied to experience, or a combining of both the learned knowledge and the experienced knowledge of a lifetime. And maturity is the stature with which one approaches differing conditions that they experience through their lives. So by this definition set, we can see how someone can be very intelligent yet immature, or very ignorant yet still posture themselves in a mature manner, etc. The only intrinsic set that I observe here is that where there is wisdom, there must be experience and/or intelligence as a foundation.
I came to Thoughts with a few specific goals. I wanted to discuss the forbidden topics – religion and politics. Very important issues to me, and very difficult to find maturity in conversations. Another goal was to increase my own maturity, as I have a bad temper, enhanced by bipolar disorder. Some of you remember my using the Hulk avatar, symbolic of my inner rage. I hope, and feel, that I've moved ahead in that area. I really try to just stick to topic, and defuse the insults and get back to facts. I don't seek war, but peace these days. I'm not perfect, but I'm pretty certain that cruising my blog and comment history will show growth in the desired direction. I owe my gratitude to Thoughts and a number of you for that growth.
But something unexpected along the way – I developed friendships. Now to some, that's a casual thing. But I've been somewhat antisocial over the years, due to my emotional swings. Here, I was able (after some mistakes) to maintain new friendships, and my faith and my gullibility increased. And with these friends came a certain sense of community. Greeting new arrivals, praying for others, crying as I read or write something, calling out pornography and prostitution – it's my home, and I want it to be a pleasure. Some of the pillars here, I envision in my mind like the wise men who sat on the top of the gates into Jerusalem. They were there to keep an eye, and to discuss the great subjects. I almost built my image into a cyber-Camelot. Imagine – I found some genuine compassion and friendship here. What a place! I love Thoughts, right?
Silly me. I found lots of degrees of intelligence, many much higher than my own. I fed from these minds as best I could. And experience, and wisdom. Sure; I've got friends of all ages, men, women, children, liberal, conservative, libertarian, socialist, Marxist, atheist, theist, agnostic, Muslim, Christian, Hebrew, Buddhist, straight, gay, lesbian, perhaps the largest motley crew you've ever met. So a lot of wisdom, and it's components, are in great abundance here. What I'm not finding is maturity. Or perhaps not enough. I'm not seeing, even amongst my own friends, compassion for me or my friends to each other. There are, of course, some exceptions. We are all different, it's true. We don't always agree. But when I saw (as an example) Olla getting beaten up for offering a prayer, I didn't even wait to be asked – I chased this other user down to her web site, gave her hell, and refused to back down until I got her to go back to that blog where she insulted Olla and made her apologize. THAT is how a friend comes to another's aid. If you felt that I was out of line, tell me. "Stop throwing pies" is not the kind of deep wisdom I expect from my friends when they come to my "assistance". I feel very let down by those who I'd have done so much for had they called upon me. And today, turning on me for trying to help settle your squabbles just sealed the deal for me. I'm done. Good-bye, my real friends – you know who you are. I'm done with the false friendships – I can find those anywhere. We'll talk again, but not here. This place feels tainted to me.
John
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