Sometimes, when I was a kid, I would raise my hand in school, thinking I had the right answer. And when I spouted it out, the teacher would give me a look. A long, hard stare. I think they were trying to figure out if I was being serious or not. And then they would realize that I was serious, and that was perhaps the most obscure answer they had ever received.
Like, what year did Columbus find America?
Well, he didn’t. And I know that now. But when I was nine, I only knew the poem. The cute jingle to help us remember these bad facts.
In fourteen hundred ninety-two
Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
He had three ships and left from Spain;
He sailed through sunshine, wind, and rain.
The Nina, the Pinta, the Santa Maria,
And then he left and said, “I’ll see ya'”
Okay. So maybe that wasn’t the right poem. But it was the long-play one I made up in my head.
But that wasn’t my answer to the teacher. I’d always give some off-the-path return, like, “Exactly 472 years before I was born.”
I got told I was wrong a lot back then, which wasn’t really true. I just wasn’t giving them exactly what they wanted. And if answering that way was wrong? Then I don’t want to be right.
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“In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.” – Thomas Jefferson
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“People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe.” – Andy Rooney
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“It is better to be divided by truth than to be united in error.” – Adrian Rogers
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“Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom. Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.” – Lao Tzu
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The right or wrong answer. Or both.
