Unless you live in a different dimension, most of us would assume a thing or two if someone put a glass in front of you with equal amounts of clear liquid and air.
Either the glass is half empty or the glass is half full. Nor is it a hard rock fact per se.
That’s because the adjectives “half empty” or “half full” require you to make assumptions.
You don’t know if the glass is full unless you watch who brought it to you throughout the process, and that person poured it halfway before putting it in front of you, or half filled it is empty.
The fact that the glass has liquid at the midpoint is as pure as you can get with a “supernova” warning.
This caveat assumes that the sun rises over the Earth’s horizon every day. While everyone might think this is a rock solid fact, stars—the Sun is one of them—don’t often last forever, go supernova, or die.
How people perceive a glass with liquid as half-empty or half-full has a lot to do with their perspective. This means that how they see what is in front of them is an extension of who they are, their values, and how they see the world around them.
If this sounds like we’re too obsessed with existential philosophy, then we haven’t explored what a liquid is. Unless you see where it came from and how it got into the glass, even if you ask for water or assume it’s water, you can’t be absolutely sure what it is until you taste or even smell it.
If once you can be sure that it ends up being vodka, then one of three things could happen, the first two most likely.
First of all, if you don’t like vodka or alcohol, you won’t be happy. Second, if you love vodka and are in a good mood, you’re probably going to be very happy with what’s in front of you.
You’ve probably never tasted vodka before and took one last sip. When doing this, you may find yourself intolerable, or you may have some issues.So you might want to explore it further or decide that you don’t want to have anything to do with it
Throw in different brands and flavors of vodka—though Russian vodka is politically incorrect in today’s world—and you may suddenly see more of what you never dreamed of.
By the way, don’t assume I drink or advocate drinking just because I use vodka instead of water. I’ve never had beer or alcohol and never will. That said, I have no qualms with any drinker as long as they drink responsibly.
While we’re still on the subject — and it’s really relevant — if you’re averse to alcohol, does that stop you from shopping at Safeway, Food-4-Less, Savemart, or even some 7-11 locations? What you might do is simply drink wine and beer without buying it. You certainly don’t stop to read labels and think about ingredients.
Which brings us to the letter to the editor, or more precisely the letters of Frank Aguilar and Larry Barca.
If you’ve read the announcements long enough, chances are they’ve made an impression on you, not just whether you agree or disagree.
By the way, they are not paid columnists. Rest assured, we do not necessarily agree with the views of the columnists we contain on today’s issues. If you suspect that I spend a lot of money on various subscriptions like Mother Jones and National Review to try to better understand the often opposing viewpoints on issues, rather than the everyday sound clips and clicks.
The Think page needs to be a forum for bringing together different viewpoints. We are not clones, nor should we be. We are all people who bring different perspectives to the communities we call home, and we are working to strengthen its social and cultural fabric, be it Manteca, Ripon or Lathrop. That’s why you see letters from liberals and conservatives and everything in between, just as you see from homeowners and renters and homeless people.
What you read may reaffirm what you believe or agree with. They might piss you off.
They can be frustrating to you because even if they are at odds, in some cases they may be seen as ambitious views from your point of view that are rooted in — or at least the source of On – from the facts.
Even when you’re convinced that this author is mechanically involved in a Kool-Aid mixed by those who channel a left- or right-wing version of Jim Jones, Rubber has a well-known problem with how we view these facts.
Whether the glass is half empty or half full is a perspective. Whether it’s water, vodka, or something else, that’s an assumption until closer inspection. If it’s glass as defined by a drinking vessel made of sand, it’s true that no dye has the benefit of being transparent and shattering when you hit it with a sledgehammer.
And, yes, letter writers can add what might aptly be called Kool-Aid to water or vodka.
It certainly makes the water cloudy, but it clearly tells you where they come from.
Once you understand this, it provides the basis for you to start a conversation leading to better understanding — or at least understanding — and possible solutions.
If you conclude that they are drinking too much vodka and/or Kool-Aid and think the practice is dangerous, wouldn’t it make sense to involve them in a way that would help them sober up?
During this process, you may see something different.
This column is the opinion of editor Dennis Wyatt and does not necessarily reflect the views of The Bulletin or 209 Multimedia.he can [email protected]
