The Year of the Wood Snake

Opinion Post in the upcoming Ocilla Star Newspaper

January 29th was the first day of The Lunar New Year. It marked the start of the ‘Year of the Wood Snake’ for more than a billion people world wide. The Snake is the sixth animal in the Chinese Zodiac, and symbolizes Wisdom. The Wood element portrays growth and flexibility.

While I know very little about the Chinese Zodiac, I do know that in western philosophy the first of the Four Cardinal Virtues is Wisdom. And ancient philosophy defines Wisdom as- the Pursuit of Knowledge.

“True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.” -Socrates

But how do we distinguish what information is true? Which info is knowledge, and which is just hearsay? In this new technological world, we have a vast aggregation of information at our fingertips. We are constantly inundated with it, which can be quite overwhelming at times.

“The search for truth is in one way hard and in another way easy, for it is evident that no one can master it fully or miss it wholly.” -Aristotle

Our goal should not only be to acquire information, but to find facts. So we must actively seek our info from a variety of sources, and withhold judgment until we are confident that we can make an educated decision on an issue. It’s too easy to see a post and make a snap judgment without doing the proper research…without doing any research. We see headlines constructed solely to get our attention, and repeat them, or repost; then get offended or feel attacked when someone disagrees. If we would only pause for a moment and look a little deeper, instead of a confirmation, we might just find that we see the subject differently. Either way, if we do our own research at least then we will have solid ground to stand on when discussing the subject.

“You cannot learn what you already know.” -Epictetus

It’s integral that we remember this fact. To do this we must look in places that we normally wouldn’t. If we ‘lean to the right’ we must read or watch those who have different opinions with an open mind. And of course that sentiment goes both ways, if we ‘lean to the left’ we cannot simply dismiss the views of the other side either. It’s important that we see the ‘other side’ as our neighbor, who simply lives on the other side of the street. Let’s not let politicians who make the isle a great crevice, convince us that we are enemies. We must remember that we share this street, this nation of ours.

The Pursuit of Wisdom is how we do this. By understanding that each issue we face as a nation is more complex than the headline, deeper than the social media post. By taking time to research a subject before we form a conclusion is just common sense. And I feel confident that there’s not one among us that thinks they lack common sense. So let’s be wise. Let’s use that common sense to form our own educated opinion, instead of blindly echoing someone else’s rhetoric. Afterall, we do actually want to be correct in our opinions, right?

Happy Lunar New Year! And may the year of the Wood Snake bring Wisdom, and Growth to all.