Saturday, April 25, 2009

my dad



my dad had been the head of a couple of large corporations. he was a smart man. and then he got altzheimers. his memory got elongated and then pretty much destroyed. i used to have him feed the horses with me until he grabbed the electric wire one day.
the last year of his life he talked a lot about horses and water with grand physical gestures included to emphasize his point.
one day he turned to me and clearly said,"none of us know what we are talking about anyway."i thanked him for that insight. and 5 minutes later he turned to me again and clearly stated, "you know, we are all happy we just don't know it".
i don't think his second comment overrode the truth of his first comment. but i do wonder sometimes if any of us really know what we are talking about. for example, there are probably people who still believe the idea of AIDA works. that we think and act so logically that we have awareness, develop interest, then desire and finally take action. more like we have desire, take action and develop a good post rationalization for our behavior. like the horses but i am not sure how much they care about the post rationalization part.