When You Don’t Know

 

 

When you don’t know you don’t know

You don’t know you don’t know.

 

But what is it you don’t know you don’t know?

 

If you knew you didn’t know what you don’t know

You would know you don’t know that you didn’t know.

 

It is impossible not to know what you don’t know.

 

Not to know what you don’t know

Is to don’t know what you don’t know.

 

You cannot know what you don’t know

The same time you don’t know.

 

Even God cannot know what He doesn’t know

Because there is nothing that God doesn’t know.

 

God knows what He knows

And there is nothing He doesn’t know He knows.

 

You know what you know

And you know what you don’t know.

 

 

You don’t know what you know

But you don’t ever know what you don’t know you don’t know.

 

I know you know you are totally confused

And that is because

You didn’t know you didn’t know

I knew you didn’t know you didn’t know.

 

By the way, you may know you are not mad

But you do not know you are mad.

 

You may think I am mad

But I know you don’t know for sure

So, go with what you know

And what you do not know

I can’t tell you to forget

Because you don’t know.

 

Stewart Russell © March 22, 2022    

Real Mathematics

 

 

One and one is two

And two and two is six,

If you were my teacher

I’d be getting “licks”,

 

But yet you can read

That is what you’d say

And particularly so

Especially in this day.

 

I was a teacher too

And still in my right mind

But now I’m getting old

This happens all the time.

 

I am assuming

You understand English

So that what is in verse one

Is not simply my wish.

 

Hence we’ll move on a little

In our Mathematics

And hopefully as you read

I’ll get you out this fix.

 

No doubt you are thinking

I am kind of mixed up,

I am old but not that old

So you are out of luck.

 

 

One and two is three

And three and three is nine,

If you add correctly

It will be right each time.

 

No I am not mad

And neither am I blind

And neither is new mathematics

Messing with my mind.

 

If verses one and seven

Were taken just as written

I assure you my friend

You’d see your problem.

 

Take lines one and two

Of verses one and seven,

Write them down in figures

And easily do the problem.

 

 

One from two leaves two

And five from six leaves six,

Depending on what you mean

This could be a fix.

 

If it were a case of eating

That might work out well

But in another case

It may be difficult to sell.

 

The items may be around

But in a different form,

Five dead sheep and one alive

Six is still that norm.

 

Remove the dead sheep

And the answer would be one

But if the opposite were true

Not a sheep would be gone.

 

 

I hope you are not confused

Or even experiencing strife,

This is real mathematics

And you have to factor in life.

 

They tell me I am mad

And my thing is so weird

But if you still don’t understand

Your thinking is impaired.

 

Stewart Russell © November 2018

 

Case of the Missing Host

 

 

He told me he was not home when I arrived

Though he met me there himself,

I must confess I was forced to agree

As he convinced me he was somewhere else.

 

He told me he was not home when I arrived

Yet it was he that invited me in,

As I mulled over the matter I asked myself,

“Am I the fool here or is it him?”

 

He told he was not home when I arrived

And this he told me to my face,

I looked in his eyes to see if he was joking

But to be honest I could not see a trace.

 

He told me he was not home when I arrived

And this he said for the fourth time,

If not a fool then I must have been mad

For I felt as though I had lost my mind.

 

Stewart Russell © March 17, 2021

Not Out of My Mind

 

 

I’m not out of my mind

Only half way there,

Some call me half-mad

But I don’t particularly care.

 

I have been like this

For a good while now

But in a world of mad people

I have managed somehow.

 

Do I miss the lost half?

Not ever,

Would I seek after it?

No, never.

 

Why not, I hear you ask,

The answer is very simple,

I have half more than you

And most other people.

 

Out of my mind?

No, just the useless half,

I still have that part

That makes me laugh.

 

If you no longer laugh

You’ve lost the critical half,

You are a raft in life’s ocean

Without an oar or mast.

 

To lose this half

Is to lose all your mind,

This half makes you laugh

Even when you are in a bind.

 

Laughing at yourself

Is one of the evidences

And by the way, even in that bind

You can still rest.

  

Out of my mind?

How would you tell

If you have totally lost yours

And cannot be well?

 

Just imagine this!

The mad assessing the half-mad,

If that’s how we are operating

Then things are really bad.

 

Then the mad will rule

And the half-mad will serve...

Breaking News! That’s what it is,

The last news I’ve heard.

 

Now you’ve stop laughing

You’ve joined the totally mad,

No appreciation for a joke

That is very sad.

 

Stewart Russell © November 1, 2020