I read today that Louis Farrakhan, leader of the Nation of Islam, born Eugene Walcott in The Bronx, then raised in Boston's Roxbury, was a calypso fiddle player in the 1950s, billed then as "The Charmer." Who knew?
Well, somebody knew, obviously, or I wouldn't be writing about it today. But I am regularly and consistently reminded of how little I know, and how many judgments or decisions I'm prepared and willing to make with so little knowledge.
It isn't just the Farrakhan/Walcott/Charmer connection that has me thinking. It's what it represents. Louis Farrakhan owns a little piece of territory in my mind. A little box of memory that was entirely filled with vague notions about the Nation of Islam. Not even real information. Just vague notions.
There was nothing about any Eugene Walcott, or "The Charmer." Nothing until I read about them today. And now the Louis Farrakhan box is larger, and means something more than its previous, vague contents. That old memory box was undernourished and ill-informed. And if that's true about the Louis Farrakhan box, it must be true about most of the other boxes up top in DAH.
Which brings me to an interesting language difficulty I've faced recently. When asked for my "opinion" about most things, I offer none. In a funny epiphanette, inspired by I don't know what, I suddenly realized that most people were asking me for my preference or my "first-take." But when they said "opinion" I clammed up.
To me, "opinion" meant "considered opinion" -- like a legal opinion. And I know that my understanding, awareness and knowledge (let alone my actual internal philosophical debates) in most subject areas are undernourished and ill-informed ... just like with Mr. Farrakhan. How could I offer a reasonable or respectable "opinion?" About anything?
I'm coming to grips with this, and learning how to offer "qualified opinions" on some things. But I'm still pretty reticent about trotting out judgments without educating myself about the issues and properly considering them.
One of The Four Agreements is to be "impeccable with my word." To me, that's not as simple as "always tell the truth," because that is so often an ill-considered judgment (or an expression of emotional, or even gastric, distress). It means I need to consider what I say before I let it slip aloud into the world. I need to think about that little box in my head, and make sure that it's properly filled and evaluated before relying upon it to back me up.
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