Rhinos acquire Opinions; We spend so much time musing over Life’s Little Ways that We form conclusions and insights. There is little quality control on our thinking, We admit. Many ideas are reflections of traditions or concepts We have overheard. Opinions can last a long time, however you measure it.

What is remarkable about Opinions is how little they matter when confronting anything big in our lives. Minor things can be influenced by attitude based on Opinion. But major crises occur in a different sphere. They do not require anything but sober acknowledgement, as part of a larger scheme, where our judgments are of no interest whatever.

We are constrained by our Opinions. With time they can form Us, rather than We forming them.

True, it takes some Optimism (and some Patience) to see how things come together. Still, they do, no matter what We had planned.

When We get willing to go with what is, rather than how We imagined it would be, We come out with something pretty satisfying, all the same.

Puzzling, yes?

Today begins the Festival of Obon, a Buddhist recognition of ancestry, honoring family members gone before.

We at Your Inner Rhino are keenly aware of our own heritage, and think it is a good thing to set aside time to be grateful.

We are reposting a picture from October 22, 2014, just to remind you of how many Rhino family members there are, millions and millions and millions of years worth. No member of the family makes, or has made, a lesser contribution than another. Each of Us is a novel version of a long chain of predecessors.

Rhinos are lucky indeed. And grateful.

is a rose. Not surprisingly, the same thing is true for watermelons. Clearly. This is what is known as Common Sense, information on which everyone agrees.

We would point out that most Common Sense proceeds without investigation or conscious attention. We just know things and leave them to their own devices. Why fuss?

Every now and again Rhinos like to review the elements of what is commonly known, just to see if things have changed. They almost invariably have. Then uncommon knowledge is factored into the mix.

We are brilliant.