I do not regard myself as smart.
Though, I do regard myself as knowledgeable, a condition I attribute mostly to the fact that I am old and have been around long enough to collect a lot of knowable things…
Plus, I read a lot, which enables me to collect even more knowable things.
Yeah, knowing a lot doesn’t make one smart…
Knowing what to do with the things one knows, now that’s smart.
Smart people know how to leverage knowledge in ways that benefit them, however they may define it.
Probably they define it mostly as success, money, happiness, power, etc.
Or so I suppose.
I also suppose the fact that having a lot of knowledge doesn’t necessarily equate to being smart is also why calling someone a “know it all” is usually not a good thing.
Yeah…
But, unfortunately, there are some nuts in life that are so tough to crack that even truly smart people do not know what to do about them.
Climate change.
Trump.
The problems between Israel and Palestine.
Yeah, especially that one…
A lot of smart people have been working on that tragic nut of a situation for a long, long time.
Which is why I don’t feel so bad for not having any idea what can be done to solve it.
But I certainly feel bad that it is seemingly impossible to solve.
I empathize greatly for both sides.
As a white male US citizen who does in fact feel guilty for how his English ancestors (there is a town in England called Brindley) and his country subsequent to its independence from England brutally treated North America’s indigenous people, the Native Americans, and the enslaved from Africa, my heart truly aches for the Palestinians and all they’ve lost and the suffering that they had and continue to endure since 1948.
And as a US citizen who, despite how bitter he is with its current state of violence and dysfunction is still relatively proud to be a citizen of the US, remembers as if it were yesterday the pain and fear and immense anger he felt after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and can completely understand why Israel is so determined to completely wipe out Hamas.
How I feel about the death penalty is an insufficient comparison regarding Israel’s response to 7/10 but I’ll make it nonetheless:
I feel the death penalty is wrong…
That violence in response to violence only begets more violence.
However, despite knowing that, if something happened to my family like that which happened to so many Israeli families by the Hamas terrorists…
I feel I would personally want to exact an equally, if not more so, violent and horrifying revenge with my own bare hands.
I’m reminded of the response by George Clooney’s character Governer Mike Morris in “The Ides of March” when asked his opinion of the death penalty…
Which reminds me of the hearbreaking Morrissey lyrics (are there any other kind?) from The Smiths song I Know It’s Over:
... It's so easy to laugh It's so easy to hate It takes strength to be gentle and kind Over, over, over, over It's so easy to laugh It's so easy to hate It takes guts to be gentle and kind Over, over ...
Anyway…
#prayforpeaceinthemiddleeast
#andeverywherelse
It is a sad situation for both sides, however even after 9/11 the U.S. tried to avoid retaliating on innocent civilians. As they say, an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.
Yeah, still so many were killed as so called collateral damage. Some estimates near 400,000. Our twenty-year response to 9/11 was a failure. A lesson Israel didn’t seem to learn. I think we, and Israel, would have been better off, in results and reputation and especially in civilian death count, with a precisely targeted counter-terrorism response.
But what do I know… I’ll leave that kind of thinking to the smart people.
I guess precise warring doesn’t exist. Hopeful it all stops soon.
Indeed. Which reminds me of another Smiths song – How Soon Is Now.
I’m not sure there are any smart people when it comes to war, terrorism, and retribution! Our base instincts cannot be got rid of.
Alas, we are indeed a violent and tribal species…
Maybe too much to hope for considering the history.