A fool has many answers but a wise man has only questions.   – Unknown 

As I walked into the house a few days ago, dinner was on the stove, the kids were racing down the stairs to take their places at the table and my wife was moving around the kitchen at the speed of light.  

As we sat down to eat and the plates began to fill with food, the question hit me out of nowhere. 

“Dad, what’s a psychotropic hallucinogen?, asked my young son. 

The clatter of plates and background noise quickly stopped.  After a few seconds of awkward silence I answered him.  

“It’s a kind of drug that affects your brain and makes you see things that aren’t real,“ I answered.    

“Where did you hear about this son?”, I asked him.  

Shaking his head at the ignorance of my question he quickly reproached me by saying, “Dad!  Don’t you remember when the Scarecrow shot Batman in the face with a yellow gas?…Well, Batman told Alfred it was a psychotropic hallucinogen!” 

“Oh”, I lamely replied.  

His desire for knowledge not yet satiated, he continued his questions:

“How does it make you see things that aren’t real?”

“By altering the composition of the chemicals in your brain”

“How does it alter the composition of the chemicals in the brain?” 

“By changing their molecular structure” 

How does it change their molecular structure?” 

“Go ask your Grandfather! (Conveniently a chemist) 

Not only do children want all the answers to everything but they want easy answers as well.  It is only through the maturation process that we as adults realize that sometimes there are no answers to some problems, much less easy answers. 

I have often thought to myself how little we as humans know.  The more one reads, the more one learns and most importantly, the more one watches what goes on around him, the more he realizes how limited our knowledge is.  

To younger people this seems counterintuitive, as they expect a linear progression of knowledge and learning.  

The more one knows then the less he does not know.  Right? 

Wrong.  As we expand our knowledge we understand more for sure, but we also begin to ask more questions and this in turn expands one’s sense of what they don’t know.  

Metaphorically, as we gain knowledge our slice of the pie gets bigger (what we know), at the same time the size of the entire pie gets bigger as well tempering our knowledge gains. 

I for one have a visceral mistrust of those who claim to know it all or those that have very easy answers to complex problems.  

The software business is famous for this.  How many times have you been approached by a software salesperson who claims that they have the “killer app?”  They tell beautiful stories of how their software application will, at the press of a button, tell you nearly everything.  

From how much your product costs to make, to consolidating financial statements without human intervention to who took a two hour lunch on Friday, there is seemingly no end to the things that will happen “automatically.” 

In our own business, governance, risk and control (GRC) software has been floated around as the solution to identify all risks, make sure no one does anything stupid and allow management to know everything all the time.  

Sure..sure… 

We know a little bit about risk assessment and we know that no software can independently identify risks.  The process of identifying and quantifying risks is a non linear process and far too nuanced for traditional software to handle.  

Tools are needed for risk assessment for sure, but these tools need to be ones that enhance our human judgment rather than replace it.  To find out more about our Neural Network based risk assessment process contact us here.  

But back to our quest for knowledge… 

I suppose in the end that this is what life is about.  We are engaged in a constant learning process, we find answers to some questions and these answers breed yet more questions.   The extinguishment of our collective intellectual curiosity would probably result in the stasis of our technological advancement.  

The most learned people realize the limitations of what they know and are constantly questioning their assumptions about what they think they know and striving to ask questions that have not been asked before.  

Later that evening, after the kids were in bed, my wife and I sat down to relax.  She offered me some kind of herbal tea and I accepted.  

As we drank the tea I began to share some of the thoughts mentioned above with her.  About half way through the conversation, I looked into the kitchen from the room where we were sitting and saw something on the counter.

“Wait a minute is that a new coffee maker?”, I asked.  “We don’t need a new coffee maker.” 

“No its not”, my wife replied calmly.  

“What do you mean it’s not, I’m looking right at it”, I asserted.  

“It’s not a new coffee maker”, she repeated.  

Confused as to what she was talking about I decided to take a few seconds to gather my thoughts.  To fill in the silence I asked, “What kind of tea is this anyway.” 

Her full smile beamed at me as she happily replied, “It’s a psychotropic hallucinogen!” 

Have a great week, 

Michael Bechara, CPA

Managing Director

Granite Consulting Group Inc.

mbechara@consultgranite.com

www.consultgranite.com