Three days in February .... day two

January was not completely occupied by business -- unfinished or otherwise. I purchased two more guns. One is shown here, a Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) in .300 Winchester Magnum caliber, a cartridge introduced in 1963. The caliber is popular among elk, moose, bighorn sheep and grizzly bear hunters, and among police and military snipers. Since I am none of them, why did I purchase it? Simply because I have always wanted a rifle in that caliber. Actually, it is the fourth BAR I have owned, each in a different caliber. This one was made in Belgium in 1981. The other January purchase has not arrived yet. It is a Smith & Wesson .41 magnum revolver. The caliber has been around since 1964, and this revolver was made about the same time. I have not pinpointed the exact date of manufacture yet. This is a caliber with more than a little mystique in the realm of dedicated "shooters" among the firearms community. Sort of like the .38 Super I bought last November -- calibers that draw faithful followers. As if you really are interested .... anyway .... I will, undoubtedly, photograph it for a future post. I also would suggest you learn more about firearms; I do not know about Girl Scouts, but the Boy Scout motto is, "Be Prepared." And, I try to be. As for the music, this is my second-favorite Boston piece, and, I think, the guitar work between the "two songs within a song" is the most beautiful guitar work ever, ever, ever, ever ....

Contrary to some

(Editor's Note: This is the second of three related posts [four, possibly] I plan to run this week.)

Contrary to the beliefs of some (probably most), the more I learn, the less I know.

I wonder about people who "know" they have all the answers.

By this, I do not mean people who have certain beliefs and codes and standards and a structured manner of living their lives. I think I have/do those things myself. Faith and belief, for instance, are not the same as claiming absolute knowledge.

What I do mean are people who are absolute socialists or communists or Democrats or Republicans or Nazis or Christians or atheists or Muslims or existentialists or Jungians or nihilists or .... well, I could go on and on, but I think you get my drift. How can anyone be an absolute believer -- a devotee -- to any single, narrow, unequivocal viewpoint?

I think the staff of life is personal experience, and the more experience I gain, the more these single, narrow, unequivocal viewpoints seem to reveal not a thesis for living, but an antithesis .... an excuse to stop learning/experiencing .... a desire to be "the man on the silver mountain" .... a delusion of .... yes, a delusion of being someone special, someone endowed with uncommon insight ....

 At times in my life I have idolized and read everything I could find written by people like Arthur Schopenhauer, Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, Carl Jung, Will Durant, Joseph Campbell .... well, I could go on and on (sound familiar?), but, possibly, some of you get my drift.

The bottom line, to me, is that while having read endlessly at times no doubt has been beneficial and the concepts of others have served sort of as road signs and building blocks along the way, no books, no words by others no matter how brilliant or wise can replace experience. And, experience tells me the more I learn the less I know and understand about myself and about life and about those around me and about the universe in which we exist .... but, I still am searching, learning, wondering .... sometimes leaping without looking ....

Experience, give me more and more and more, which largely comes through living/working in new worlds or by adventures alone or with other individuals -- not from sight-seeing excursions or, sadly, from flights into the fiction or fantasy written by some and read by others who live lives of quiet desperation .... and, certainly not from listening to those who "absolutely know" all the answers.

And, I am beginning to think the blogs no longer serve me a purpose .... if they ever did ....