Some of the things I've learned are things I'm happy about. Not all of them, of course, and maybe not even many, but a few of them I've are ones I'd even pick and not just because very few people choose them.

While hearing and reading are common enough, my experience has been that not many people actually listen to what's being said or limit their reading to what is actually on the page. It seems to be a large part of the human experience to add ideas in, to read between the lines, and end up understanding or hearing things that were never brought up.

Listening or reading carefully, I admit, is much more work than jumping to conclusions, but it's something I was taught to do and I'm glad it's part of me. I rather like not hearing "that was a stupid thing to do" and not misunderstanding that as "you're stupid."

Then again, I also assume (without any reason to) that most people are as careful about what they say, how they tell things, as I am, and I have a sneaking suspicion that's rarely the case.

A second very rare quality I have is, for lack of a better word, patience. Every day I'm bombarded with a lot of claims, but I've learned to resist the temptation of believing everything I hear just because it lines up with things I already believe.

One reason for this was my (questionable) education. While studying philosophy may not have been a particularly sound decision as far as, you know, work goes, for me (at least), it got me to learn how to think and exercise my mind. Subject matter aside, philosophy is taught by presenting some idea and then challenging it. First you learn to understand what someone is saying, then you learn what the problems are with that position.

You cannot do one without the other.

I remember some professor when we were studying the ancient Greeks telling us something along the lines of "You can't just say that he's wrong because modern physics has taught us that the world's not made of fire, earth, water, and air." To argue against the position, you have first buy into his argument, comprehend what he's saying, and then using the rules of his world, see what's wrong with it.

So, the first thing I do is try and understand someone or something on its own terms. Only then can I see what's wrong with it.

Part of this, and a real learning experience for me, came early in my work life. At the time I was working at Lockheed (in their credit union), and someone intentionally or not misheard something about $600 toilet seats. Maybe they read something and only understood the words toilet seat, or maybe they thought they were being cute by calling it that.

In any case, the media exploded and people began shaking their fists about this obscene fleecing of the US government.

And, on its face, it sounds like an absurd idea to charge the taxpayers $600 for something you can get at Home Depot for about ten dollars.

Lockheed, of course, tried to explain things and sent all us employees and probably most of the media memos pointing out that the item in question wasn't a toilet seat and explaining their side of the whole thing: it was a custom part that covered the entire toilet assembly, it was a part so ancient the whole thing had to be built, again, from scratch, &c &c &c.

That little thing taught me, especially when hearing something outrageous, not to make any decision until I hear the other side. There's almost always another side, and while it's quicker and maybe more fulfilling to hear or read something that shows how bad those other guys are, it's rarely true. The truth of such things, of just about everything, contains both one way of looking at it and another.

"The truth is rarely plain and never simple." -- Oscar Wilde