KNOWING and Knowing. [huh?]

We do not have to know everything about something in order to understand it; too many facts are often as much of an obstacle to understanding as too few. There is a sense in which we moderns are inundated with facts to the detriment of understanding.
     --Mortimer J. Adler

And then I gotta ask, is "understanding" the same as "wisdom"? [Pls note, unless the query or exclamation is a part of the quote, one closes the quotes before applying those two punctuation marks, ditto colon and semicolon. NOT true for periods and commas, which fall inside of the quotes. And, DO NOT get Dr. Grammar-police started on "its" versus "it's"; my local loca newspaper makes me loco!]

Okay, back to understanding and wisdom, whattaya think? More pointedly, what did Solomon think? Something to the tune of, "It ain't whatcha know, it's what ya do!" [taken from The Not-King David's Version of Proverbs 1: 1-7.]

"...do not be weary in well-doing." 2 Thess. 3: 12 (RSV), as dear old Paul said.

So, when you're reading or when I'm writing, what on earth does that have to do with knowing, understanding, grammar-policing, or well-doing?

I dunno, I'm just full of good questions this aft...good questions w/o good answers. More, later.

Okay, after a day to mull (so many things improve with slight aging...especially ideas!) I'm thinking more about knowing what we know. I'm going to go down that olde English road, the King's English, and assert that truly knowing something means we've spent time with it, invested emotion and intellect in it, have gone beyond factual knowledge to profound acquaintance--as in Genesis 2, "...and Adam knew his wife, Eve..." Leaving aside the issue of sexual intercourse, as difficult as that may be to set aside as that's one of my favorite parts of the goodness of God's creation, Adam was the first (and last) man to truly understand his wife! Okay, all joking temporarily aside, Adam knew Eve the way an artists knows his palette, the way a pianist knows her keyboard, the way a dog knows its favorite toy--profoundly, intuitively, experientially. Ahh, and that brings me to a good closing point, with a quote from Denis Diderot, French guy...hah, you guessed! He was a philosopher, art critic, and writer.

"There are three principal means of acquiring knowledge: observation of nature, reflection, and experimentation."

I submit that not only writers and artists, not only scientists and scholars, but every last human being has these three capacities. I would also suggest that traditional schooling does a rather good job of squelching the innate eagerness to learn that we see in every normal little kid. Alas...but, it's never too late. You, yes you, today, can go forth and see, touch, think, wonder, and do--remembering that creativity is a part of human nature that is a reflection of the divine.