wasting time

To avoid wasting time I should do something. But some things are more worthy than others. And there are both intra and intercultural examples.

I spend a lot of time thinking rather than doing. This is an old routine. As a teacher I would do a literature search, then design and present a lesson plan. And the old habits are still with me in retirement.

But these days things are done differently. Students have easy access to information via the internet so finding content is not a problem. But on popular topics the student can be overwhelmed by the amount and reliability of data.

In my youth and amongst my ancestors there was what E H Waddington called COWDUNG (conventional wisdom of the dominant groups). But modern freethinkers embrace cultural pluralism which deals not with truth but rather with the best working hypothesis given the evidence presently available.

Intellectually honest modern people accept uncertainty and doubt. Their minds are not closed. They are unlikely to be zealots. If such people were to be the power brokers we might see an end to war.