Today I had an interesting so-close-to-argument discussion. We were talking about how much money had changed hands between the two of us earlier in the day, and the facts of the scenario were blatantly clear to me (particularly because even Heisenberg couldn’t prevent me from knowing exactly where my cash funds are at at any given time). So I stuck with the axiomatically-derived assertion that 2 x $50 = $100, and that there was no chance the $100 I was given at the start of the day, less only what I spent (and not less any more), could have left the remnant which remained in my wallet.

We worked it out eventually, once the exact facts were established through a third party. The point, however, was not so much that I was right, but that we both reached a mutual understanding. Simply asserting what I knew to be true, with my own empirical reasoning, was enough to do some convincing, mostly about my rightness on little more than a logically sound level. Still, my side of the story wasn’t enough to fill in the gaps in my arguee’s understanding. I was right, but that’s not comforting to someone else who simply can’t piece together the why. My being right had no bearing on their still-deficient worldview. No, it would have been better to follow a partial mantra for life which I put into place some years ago.

Ask the next question.

If you ask the next question in any given circumstance, you move closer to determining the more significant underlying meaning. You extend your mind, pressing past the monotony of the mundane to the strange exhilaration of the unknown. It’s the expression of the mandate to grow always, another life principle of mine.

The next question would have been to establish where the rest of the money could have gone – retrace the spending pattern to complete the picture. It would have meant addressing the affliction rather than only treating the symptoms.

Before the curtain falls, a couple of highly pretentious and equally profound Latin piths. Temet nosce. Oh, and carpe diem, despite its clichéd banality. Really, carpe diem it up. I’ll be asking the next question while I’m carpe dieming, too.