Unquote the quote?

On one hand Ayn Rand says, any process of creation is deduction and the process of understanding the creation is induction. (Logically that leaves a lot of room for assumption). On the other hand, some whacky source spread the quote, to assume is to make an ass of u(you) and me. There!  Two existing notions negating one another perfectly…sounds familiar, right?

I am sure every one of you would have been a part of a situation where what your friend advocated negated what your mum says. Or what your dad says indirectly condemned what your sibling said. That brings me to, are we a generation overburdened by the ever so confusing notions of the older generation? I mean if the early bird catches the worm, then why does slow and steady win the race? If beauty is skin deep, then how come it lies in the eyes of the beholder?

Sometimes I feel that these notions or wisecracks are nice sounding word strings that make us feel good. We quote them during conversations. Weave them into our television content. Tell our kids about it. In doing so, we proudly flaunt the information collected by someone else; the life lived by someone else. But what we really end up doing is advertising notions with polar opposites.

True, our generation of kids still hold values close to their hearts. One of them is never telling a parent or an elder that they are wrong, even if they are. But how can we comfortably assume that the next generation would follow suit? What if their logic kicks in and they negate every existing notion with another good one?

Quoting Edward de Bono, “You can only know if a notion is strong enough when you pit it against something laterally opposite to it”. While the confines of society and civilization scream out loud that the past notions should be revered, optimists like me are definitely hopeful that a few pioneers in our generation would proudly announce notions that do not negate each other.

I’ve to close this little talk right here because the Manager says time and tide waits for none but hey, haven’t someone also said, better late than never. ;)