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Saturday, November 04, 2006

Not so wise words of wisdom

We often take it for granted that words that look wise are truly wise, but that's not always the case. And such words lacking in the wisdom they seem to have can be dangerous. For example, today I saw this poster: It isn't the destination that counts: it's the journey. Sounds nice but something is wrong. It is temporal, and celebrates the moment. It is mortal, denying what is immortal. It is relativistic, saying nothing about what is objective. At its core is a reversal that turns delayed gratification on its head. It also turns logic on its head, because it suggests that the the journey has nothing to do with the final destination. It is not necessary to diminish the value of the destination in order to put some value to the experience of the journey. How we get there is as important as where we got to -- but not more so.

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