Diminutive Dominions and Dust Bunnies June 4, 2013
Posted by nrhatch in Humor, Mindfulness, Travel & Leisure.comments closed
Last week, we watched a Rick Steves’ Travel Show about the 5 smallest nations in Europe.
During the Little Europe episode, Rick visited:
* Andorra
* Liechtenstein
* Monaco
* San Marino
* Vatican City
Charmed by these diminutive dominions, BFF and I thought we’d learned something new.
Turns out, we’d learned next to nothing.
A few days after touring Little Europe with Rick, Jeopardy offered a category, Little Europe, with five correct answers:
Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino, and Vatican City.
We got four out of five questions WRONG!
We named the five countries correctly . . . except for Andorra (which we called Angola) and San Marino (which we called Dan Marino) . . . but we called them out in the wrong order.
The one question we nailed dealt with Monaco having a casino in Monte Carlo.
Let’s face it, you don’t have to be “smarter than a 5th grader” to know that . . . not if you grew up watching James Bond.
Hearing something and learning something are not the same thing at all.
Before we claim to have learned something, we need to ensure that the information is readily retrievable.
If not, it’s just brain clutter of no more use than dust bunnies under the bed.
While we’re on the subject of brain detritus and trivia, let’s play a little game.
Ready? Take a look at the image on the right. Can you guess what it is?
Yes, it’s a photo.
No, it’s not the tangle of cords around my home computer.
Here’s a hint: Imagine you’re looking into a high-powered microscope.
Still nothing?
OK. Imagine that you’ve just cleaned under the bed and . . .
Yes! It’s a photo of the microscopic synapses in a dust bunnies’ brain!
Aah . . . that’s better!
Illustrations: Wikipedia ~ Dust Bunny (in Public Domain)
Spirit Lights The Way 