It's not a black and white world

CEBU, Philippines - One morning, Brad, the world's smartest rat, decided to talk about colors as part of his lesson for the day.

His students - the kittens known as Blackfoot, Whitefang and Stripe - found the lesson a little bit silly, since they already learned about colors, specifically about the primary colors red, yellow and blue.

Also, apart from learning about primary colors, they already talked about secondary colors, about how one can get the color green from mixing blue and yellow, how one can get the color orange from mixing red and yellow, and how one can get the color purple from mixing blue and red together.

But just when they thought the day's lesson was going to be boring, Brad began talking about the colors "amaranth", "coquelicot", "eburnean", "falu", "fulvous", "glaucous", "mikado", "smaragdine", "wenge" and "xanadu" - ten colors which the kittens had never heard of!

After a moment's pause, Stripe, the smartest of the three kittens, broke the silence.

"Brad… these colors you just mentioned… do these really exist?" asked Stripe.

"Yeah," agreed Blackfoot and Whitefang.

"Their names sound like… names which you just made up!" exclaimed Blackfoot.

"More like… the names of superheroes and anime characters, if you ask me," seconded Whitefang.

Amused, Brad knew that he had given the lesson he intended to impart that day.

"Little kittens, the ten colors I just mentioned are the names of actual colors," Brad began to explain.

"The reason why I mentioned them is not to confuse you, but to illustrate a point - that the world is full with variations, variations that go beyond what is obvious or what is popular."

"Simply put, they are an example, proving that there's more to colors than "red", "blue", "yellow", "green" and "purple".

"You see, these days, people take information for granted, thinking that what they know about a subject is already all there is about it, not realizing that there's actually more to explore and learn about."

"Though it has to be said that knowing about everything is impossible, the colors I just mentioned are a simple example - examples that prove that this is not a black and white world, and that anyone, regardless of his or her age, can still learn something new."

"The saying "You can't teach an old dog new tricks" may be popular, but as Dog-las and Bow-gart have proven countless times in the past, the saying is not true."

"Never forget that there is always something new to discover." (FREEMAN)