What is tested is known

Thursday's are Viking quote days although I'm doing every second Thursday now and interspersing my, think like a leader, series on the alternate day. Sometimes I choose a quote randomly and sometimes based upon relevance or meaning to my life, and share some thoughts on it. These thousand year old phrases still offer value in modern society. _{original im src}

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This week's Viking quote

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What is tested is known

_{- Grettir's Saga -}

I've had good and bad experiences in life, more than I can count. Some I can't remember, experiences as a young child, and others I'll never forget. What's common to them all is that they have all caused me to act or not act, change my thoughts and attitude and continue my journey or pivot in new dierections according to the experience and the lesson learned because of it.

It's through our experiences that we gather information and build understanding; a bad relationship might give us valuable knoweldge on how to avoid that situation next time, for instance. As children if we touched something hot, we got burned, and didn't (generally) do it again, because we learned from the first experience. But experiences don't just keep us away from things, they can attract us to them as well. Think of being in love and the experiences shared with a significant other...we want more right? The good experience leads us to thoughts, attitudes and actions that take us further down that path.

What's interesting is that we can learn from our own personal experiences and also from others; that's powerful.

Instead of having to repeat the mistakes of others we can learn from their experience and do things differently with, hopefully, better results.l than we would have achieved without the wisdom gained from others. Of course, we must be careful of acting on information that doesn't come from reliable sources or is untested and I think that's what this quote alludes to.

With information coming at us from every angle these days, most with an agenda, I believe care needs to be taken to understand the information, judge and ascertain the accuracy or truth of it and determine if it is best discarded or taken on-board.

A good example of questionable information is anything that is promoted on any news service these days. Is it real, factual and reliable...or is it propaganda to make those watching it think, lean or move a particular way. Just a note here, it's the latter, in my opinion at least. People act on it also, they change their thoughts, attitudes and actions based on it. A good example would be a political election campaign where voters are swayed against one party by the opposition with information that may or may not be true and accurate. It get's more complicated when people only listen to headlines as well; that opens up the opportunity for people to make ill-considered judgements and actions.

I tend to want a little confirmation before reacting to and acting upon something I've heard; if I can't substantiate it then is it real? Of course, these days, the waters become more and more muddied and clarification or verification is difficult to obtain. It's about those at the very top keeping people divided, confused and controlled, in my personal opinion.

I guess we need to do our best when it comes to understanding and applying information we haven't gathered directly ourselves. If we haven't had the experience I think it's best to be wary of rash actions or attitudes that may be based purely on unsubstantiated information. When it comes to our own direct experiences well, if it's tested, we can rely upon it a little more than if it's not.

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That's it for this week, a thousand year-old Viking quote cautioning against rash action based on heresay and rumour. I think it's good advice.

Please feel free to disagree with my interpretation and add your own in the comments below.

Skol.

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