This, That, and The Other

This week’s Share Your World prompt from Melanie is once again leveraging Roger Shipp’s obsession with Harry Potter by asking a series of questions related to the movie “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.” Knowing nothing about that movie, I will still attempt to answer his questions before I move on to Melanie’s more traditional SYW questions. So here we go….

Here are Roger’s Harry Potter questions.

One of my favorite gifts that Harry Potter received came from the Weasley Twins; and was “Mrs. Mooney’s Marauder’s Map.” This magical document showed every classroom, hallway and secret corner in all of Hogwarts. It also showed you the location-by name of every person in Hogwarts. If you had such a magical map of your town, what would you use it for? If you would not use it, is there another person to whom you would gift it?

I do have such a magical map. It’s called Google Maps and it’s always available on my magical iPhone.

When was the last time you made a snowball? Were in a snowball fight?

I’ve lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for over a decade and it doesn’t snow here, so it’s been at least a decade since I made my last snowball. But as to snowball fights, I grew up and spent many years living in areas where it snowed every winter and, of course, I was in many a snowball fight.

Many cultures set great value in each child of the family having godparents. Did you have godparents? Are you a godparent yourself?

Yes, I had godparents, although after we moved from the city I where I was born when I was five to another city 500 miles away, I lost touch with them. Am I a godparent? As I tell people when they ask me if I have any other children besides the two I admit to, I say, “not that I know of.”

You have found a secret tunnel under your house. Where does it go?

It leads right to my lawyer, who I will engage to sue the guy who built my house for having constructed a secret tunnel underneath it without disclosing it in the listing or disclosure documents.

And now for Melanie’s traditional questions.

Is intelligence or wisdom more useful?

I once saw a quote that said that “a smart man knows that a tomato is a fruit; a wise man knows not to put tomatoes in a fruit salad.” Intelligence is defined as “the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.” Wisdom is defined as “the quality of having experience, knowledge, and good judgment; the quality of being wise.” My thoughts on this are that one must be intelligent enough to learn things. But wisdom comes from experience that allows us to use our intelligence to help make smart choices. In other words, intelligence is more closely related to book smarts gained through education, whereas wisdom is more closely related to street smarts gained through experience.

How important is play in living a healthy and fulfilling life?

To use leverage old quote, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.’ First of all, I have no idea who Jack is, but that’s besides the point. I think what it means is that without time off from work, a person becomes both bored and boring. Of course, I’m now retired, so I must, therefore, be a dull old man. Anyway, yeah, play does, in my opinion, help make life more fulfilling. As to healthy, well, I don’t know about physical health, but it probably helps with mental and emotional health.

Is happiness just chemicals flowing through your brain or something more?

I believe that happiness is essentially a range of positive emotions, including joy, pride, contentment, and gratitude. I’m not a doctor, nor do I play one on my blog, but I’d say it’s not just chemicals flowing through our brain, but something more, something that may trigger whatever mechanism in our brain we have that causes a positive response to whatever that “happiness trigger” is.