“A loose, plain, rude writer? I call a spade a spade.”
(1621 – Anatomy of Melcancholy, Democritis to the Reader).
The spade - a humble tool for digging, cutting through, spreading & mixing to enrich & stimulate a climate for growth. With its pointed, concave shape, it is well suited to its purpse & the wise gardener will not take the flat, blunt shovel in its place. He knows his aim & the tool best suited to achieving it.
So it is with life & learning. The tools must be appropriate to the task for which they are chosen & there is often need to disturb the smooth surface of common opinion & entrenched misconception to allow the mixing in of nutrients that will assist fertility & healthy growth. Digging through layers of obfuscation, misdirection & the detritus of learned ignorance is often necessary to promote an open-minded readiness to fairly consider exposed root causes & build a sustainable truth.
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The problems in our world are many and range from the simple to the catastrophic. Most of us, at least in the western world, are not faced with crisis and desperation on a daily basis. For most of us, our problems are relatively trivial, even though it may not...