Of Course I Know Everything

I didn’t take this picture while driving, because that would be irresponsible and dangerous.  You should never handle electronics while driving.  I know this looks like it came from the drivers side of the vehicle, but it’s possible that I have a backwards car with the wheel on the other side.

I don’t, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t possible.

No, in reality, this was taken by my pet monkey Buballoo – he’s quite adept with all this newfangled technology stuff that I just don’t have time to keep up with.

I know you’re probably wondering what the heck is so important about this picture.  Well – nothing really.  My wife took lots of pictures like this.  I’m sure people see snowy trees all the time.

It isn’t the picture that’s special, it’s what was happening when I took the picture that matters.  No I wasn’t driving, I already went over that – I was thinking.  I was thinking, “What the heck is with all this snow, we’re almost in California”.

For those of you who might now be wondering the same thing, shame on you.  Yes, shame on me too.

I totally had this picture in my head about what California was like, and what people in California was like, and what cars in California looked like, and what people in California did, and what people in California ate.

Guess what.  I’d never actually been to California but I already thought I knew everything about it.  It’s not something I think about, how many of my notions are just preconceptions?  How many of the things I think to be true are based on nothing but Television, or second hand knowledge?  In truth – a whole lot.

In practice I try to always keep an open mind, I don’t have a problem with people challenging my preconceptions or my notions – in fact I welcome it, it helps me refine my knowledge base.  I’ve met people who had the opposite feelings though, they were set in what they believed and didn’t want to hear any different.  To me, it’s terrifying to think that those people might have based their whole belief structure on information they didn’t actually know.

There is nothing worse than inaccurate information – facts can’t lie, the challenge is making sure you have facts, and not preconceptions based around fiction.