Whenever I work anywhere I like to put a little bit of art in my work area to make it more pleasant. In one job I had some pages of Matisse, Picasso, Monet, and others, and coworkers liked and appreciated looking at them.
One day one of my coworkers asked where I got the photos and I proudly told him “I ripped them out of a library book.” He was shocked. He said maybe that was too much information. You see he had assumed that I just admitted that I tore them out of a library book before giving the book back. That was only halfway true. It’s true they were ripped out of a library book. What I left out is that I bought the library book in a book sale from old books in the library. At a few dollars of cost, it was cheaper to cut them out of a nicely printed book than to print them on a printer on photo paper.
It is funny the things that people assume when you don’t tell them all the information. Much of humor is based on the hidden information that once you understand it, it all makes sense. I have seen that the funniest moments in my life are when I didn’t understand something, and then I realized what was going on. I have to laugh at myself sometimes for the silly perceptions I have until I understand something.
I think life is often a process of being funny until you figure things out. Often we make mistakes, but then eventually we get it and continue on. Part of what has enabled me to enjoy life is to realize that it isn’t a question of intelligence when you misunderstand only experience. Sometimes it just takes experience to get it, but once you do, what a great feeling that is. Understanding life isn’t just something the brain does, but something that you feel inside and know. I’m not saying I know life, but I do know what life isn’t.