The Owl Has Flown

Student name: Trevor Gustafson A response to: The Owl Has Flown by Sven Birkerts Due date: September 26

In this reading response, I would like to focus on one sentence where the author writes, “Wisdom is a seeing through facts, a penetration to the underlying laws and patterns.” Now this sentence could mean two things. One, it could mean that we should try to see the underlying laws and patters in spite of facts getting in the way. Or it could be saying that, as I believe, wisdom is seeing the underlying laws and patters with the lenses of facts. Because the author, Sven Birkerts, says in the previous sentence that, “wisdom has nothing to do with the gathering or organizing of facts,” I shall assume that the author takes the former opinion of seeing the underlying laws and patterns in spite of the facts.

Yes, wisdom is being able to see the underlying laws and patters. However it is also knowing simple facts like the earth revolves around the sun. Like the author says, we tend to act embarrassed around words such as truth, a synonym for fact. We all, consciously or subconsciously, know that there are truths in life, but many people deny facts and say that anyone who believes in them is closed minded. However, if, say, someone ordered a tender beef stake at a fancy restaurant, and the waiter brought out a side salad, the customer would be furious. He would certainly not be satisfied if the waiter told him that to him, the waiter, this was a steak. Why is this? It is because the customer knows the fact that a salad is different than a beef steak. The modern train of thought has led us to believe, however, that we cannot know truth. That is so absurd. I guess that is what I vehemently disagree with about this part of the essay. I get so frustrated when people say there is no truth and will believe anything they read or hear. As the author says, we have lost a belief that all things fit together. I am not sure, but I believe the author believes that we can see how things fit together if we ignore facts. I believe we can see the big picture only if we look through the lenses of facts.

Wisdom is not ignoring the facts in order to see the underlying laws and patterns; it’s seeing these things through the microscope of facts. Just as adding magnitude to a microscope makes seeing the small things easier, adding facts to our brain makes seeing the underlying workings of life easier. Trying to look at the underling layers and patterns of this world without knowledge of facts is like trying to solve an algebra problem without knowing basics of arithmetic. If we don’t know that one plus one equals two, then how are we going to solve an aquatic equation? You see, we use facts in our everyday lives. They are essential. By zooming in on something we may momentarily loose the big picture, but just like a microscope, we can angle facts to look at any topic of our choosing.

If we choose to fill our minds with a garble of information, instead of quality information, our microscope gets blurry and we can’t see as well. It is said that Sherlock Holmes, the greatest detective ever, once scolded his sidekick, Watson, for telling him that the earth revolved around the sun. Holmes said that this was useless information to him that would clutter up his brain. While Holmes was probably just kidding, and the implications of not knowing the basics of our universe is absurd, it does make a point that what we fill our minds with does matter. The better the books, the paramount of which being the bible, we fill our minds with, the better our ability to bring up important facts when we need them. I would have to agree with the author that, over the course of time, we have because lazy in our readings. In fact, unless forced too, we may not even read an essay like this due to the difficulty of reading and understanding it. It is sad that the quantity of books would replace the quality of books. Like I said, if we choice to read anything that comes along, we garble the microscope of our minds and we can no longer discern how to look at life through the microscope of our brain.