WISDOM

Today I would like to talk to you about Wisdom

I scanned the internet for a definition and after much reading I realized that it is not a simple thing to define, many interpretations exist depending on philosophy, religion, political view or simply on ones preference of a meaning of the word. 

So I dug up my old tattered and very dusty Webster dictionary and looked it up. 

“ Wisdom, The quality of being wise; the faculty to discern right and truth and to judge or act accordingly; sound judgment; sagacity; discretion; common sense; extensive knowledge. ”

The reading I have done on the subject so far is amazingly interesting and it has once again awaken my interest in philosophy, an interest that was strong in my youth but slowly faded away with the passage of the years. I would like to share with you what I have learned in my little bit of reading, but it is a lot of complex ramblings of long dead philosophers ( Socrates, Confucius, Buddha, etc...)  and I will most certainly loose most of you way before the end of it, if I have not done so already. But it is a worthy topic and I will one day come back to it !!

My two cents on the subject is that we live in a world lacking wisdom, we do no strive for it, we do not recognize it when in it’s presence, we do not chose it’s path when presented with the opportunity and therefore a vast number of the human specie can more attune themselves to its antonyms unfortunately. 

But, I have to start over as I have digressed and become long-winded as my friends often accuse me of being, so here we go :

Today I would like to talk about “Wisdom” 

 "Wisdom is a 60+ year old female Laysan Albatross" 

She first came to my attention about a month ago as I was browsing the BBC news online. She made the news because this year she was spotted raising a chick and they were amazed that she was doing so at her age. They knew her age as she was first banded way back in 1956 ( before I was born !!! ) while incubating an egg ( not necessarily her first one !! ) . It was an interesting article and made me feel good to know that some albatrosses manage to live long lives despite all that we do to prevent that from happening. If you want to read the story it can be found here ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9419000/9419812.stm ) 

The next time I came across “Wisdom”  was again on the BBC site after the Japan earthquake, the story was about how the tsunami waves created by the earthquake had traveled all the way to the wildlife sanctuary on the Midway atoll north-west of Hawaii where “Wisdom” was nesting and devastated the sanctuary killing thousand of nesting albatrosses and petrels , the only bright spot in the story was that fortunately Wisdom and her chic had survived. You can read more on this very sad story here: ( http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/12756033 ) 

A few days later while browsing the CNN news site I once again came upon “Wisdom” , this time the news was bleak , it was much the same story as the BBC one about the devastation to the wildlife sanctuary and the lose of so many birds, but this article said that that the biologists had not seen any sign of “Wisdom” or her chic after the waves hit. If you want to read the story it can be found here: ( http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/03/18/tsunami.birds.deaths/index.html?iref=allsearch ) 

The comforting feeling I had from the knowledge that “Wisdom” had survived the disaster was now gone and with it a need to know more, which story was right ??? 

So I wrote to both BBC and CNN and pointed out the conflicting stories and asked who was right ? , this was just a couple of days ago and I have not received an answer from neither and I really don’t expect one. This natural disaster is immense, the earthquake and tsunami brought untold misery and suffering to Japan , add to that the nuclear plant calamity and a story about an albatross can seem very insignificant to many. 

My interest in the discrepant stories is twofold,

1. I really want to know what happened to Wisdom and her chic. 
2. If you are a news organization and you bother to report on something, would you not want that information to be accurate ?? ( would the readers not want it to be accurate ??? ). And if you got it wrong ( which easily can happen as we are only human ) would you not want to correct it ???.

As I finish writing all of this I decided to go to the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge site ( http://www.fws.gov/midway/tsunami.html ) , where there are some heart wrenching pictures and an update published stating that “Wisdom” and her chic have been found, HURRAH !!!!!!

Pictures can also be found at:   ( http://www.flickr.com/photos/usfwspacific/collections/72157626288933504/ ) 

So as you can see, my friends are right, I am long-winded !!! , but at least now you know  that albatrosses live long lives, but that there lives are at the mercy of mother nature as much as at the mercy of the human race, lets hope that they can overcome both and continue to grace this earth with there magnificent presence.