Originally published 101023

Don’t dare challenge common sense! is man’s reflexive chant
Nothing I can say or do, unraveling the rant
Unless, perchance, to find the time, to listen wondering
How’d we learn this same ol’ song? No rock in what we sing
Some gold might have fools in us, check iron in the pyre
Sense, should give us more not less, in common with the choir

As mentioned in 011, things changed when I began reading every day.

It’s hard to describe the emptiness those words began to fill.

Holding fire, let’s play and seek, the black and whites of lies
Scarcely caught in second’s glance, demand supplied disguise
Nursery rhymes and fairy tales, prince and the prodigal one
Independents intersect, whit and the pendulum
Closer moments shave for truth, Cinco de Mayo meant
Fireworks! says Mom’s gold goose, skylight, ladies and gents

This screenshot is from something I wrote in 1996 (and uploaded in ’99).

The following is an abbreviated version of the original.

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed without any other reason but because they are not already common.
— John Locke

Common sense is judgment without reflection which is shared by an entire class, a people, a nation, or the whole human race.
— Giambattista Vico

Judging by common sense is merely another phrase for judging by first appearance… The men who place implicit faith in their own common sense are, without any exception, the most wrong-headed and impracticable persons.
— John Stuart Mill

Sound English common sense—the inherited stupidity of the race.
— Oscar Wilde

Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age 18.
— Albert Einstein

For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and are more often influenced by things that seem than by things that are.
— Niccolo Machiavelli

The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.
— William Blake

The trouble with people is not that they don’t know, but that they know so much that ain’t so.
— Josh Billings

To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true.
— H. L. Mencken

…illusions multiply, and among them there is, I suppose none more ubiquitous than the idea that you can’t change human nature. This ancient platitude might long ago have been relegated to a home for superannuated ideas, were it not so constantly useful.
— Barrows Dunham

In all cases of perception, from the most basic to the most sophisticated, the meaning of the experience is recognized by the observer according to a horizon of expectation within which the experience will be expected to fall.
— James Burke

Perception is based, to a very large extent, on conceptual models, which are always inadequate, often incomplete, and sometimes profoundly wrong.
— Lyall Watson

Every creative act… involves a new innocence of perception liberated from the cataract of accepted belief.
— Arthur Koestler

Treasures like these nourish me.

This one, especially germane as I meander each day:

What will people say? In these words lies the tyranny of the world, the whole destruction of our natural disposition, the oblique vision of our minds. These four words hold sway everywhere.
— Berthold Auerbach

But how do you translate personal significance into words?

Part of the communication problem, as we shall see, is the strangeness of what is being found… Very few people are synthesizing information being gathered in far-flung places.
— Marilyn Ferguson

Boss battle.

You’re out of order! You’re in my contempt!
Alter the transcript, those lies are exempt
That’s not how we see, that’s not what we know
Is not this trial, preceding the blow?

The guilt a conclusion, foregone evidence
Not preconceived notions, but sound common sense
As everyone knows, our eyelids are thin
Open or closed, they let the light in

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Context: Quite often, circumstances amplified the impact of discoveries. (Sustenance and reassurance in timely capsules.)

Fun Fact: When in doubt, wonder: What if…?

…a childlike playfulness which is one of the hallmarks of creativity. Consensus is rare in psychology, but most workers in the field agree that creative thinkers can be recognized by their ability to entertain wild ideas without feeling the usual need to pass judgment on them.
— Lyall Watson

Featured Image: Quite the trap we’ve set for ourselves.

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