Response to an excerpt from a friend's post
A friend of mine referred to me in her web log recently when she said "Recently, I was showing a friend a collection of books that my hubby is insisting we keep out, rather than put away in boxes. I was complaining to her about the inconvenience. I was taken aback when she sneered at them and commented, "I don't think someone is smart from reading a bunch of fiction books. Now if someone reads a lot of non-fiction, I would consider them smart. I don't read non-fiction. I'm not into 'stories.""
I didn’t say he wasn't smart from reading a bunch of fiction books. I said I do not consider having read a bunch of fiction books an indication of intelligence. I don't think there are any salient concrete and tangible indications of ones intelligence. I have known several people who have displayed books, art, movies, and diplomas, among other items in their homes. If they are not doing it to make these items regularly available for use, my guess is that they are doing it to remind themselves that they are a sentient being. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. She's the one who said he was displaying them to symbolize his intelligence. She opened the door for comments. It's not as though their house is a gathering place for all people of bright minds, so why else would they be displayed other than to evoke his own emotive response? Oh... I did not sneer at them. Ha! It’s funny that she would even think that. There is a lot to learn from someone else’s interpretation of the world. The primary difference between Fiction and non is just that... the story... there is the same amount of learning to be done, but one can put non-fiction down and pick it up the next day without having to remember where they left off, which is a huge advantage for people with no attention span like myself.
As far as my top 10 passions are concerned, I do not feel it is important to write them out in detail, but a very vague list would be as follows (in no particular order):
Decency
Equality
Honesty
Justice
Integrity
Acceptance
Complicity
Benevolence
Responsibility
(Notice how intelligence doesn't even make the top 10?). Like intelligence, though, these are qualities that cannot be represented by a mere object hanging on a wall or in a bookcase.
I didn’t say he wasn't smart from reading a bunch of fiction books. I said I do not consider having read a bunch of fiction books an indication of intelligence. I don't think there are any salient concrete and tangible indications of ones intelligence. I have known several people who have displayed books, art, movies, and diplomas, among other items in their homes. If they are not doing it to make these items regularly available for use, my guess is that they are doing it to remind themselves that they are a sentient being. There is absolutely nothing wrong with it. She's the one who said he was displaying them to symbolize his intelligence. She opened the door for comments. It's not as though their house is a gathering place for all people of bright minds, so why else would they be displayed other than to evoke his own emotive response? Oh... I did not sneer at them. Ha! It’s funny that she would even think that. There is a lot to learn from someone else’s interpretation of the world. The primary difference between Fiction and non is just that... the story... there is the same amount of learning to be done, but one can put non-fiction down and pick it up the next day without having to remember where they left off, which is a huge advantage for people with no attention span like myself.
As far as my top 10 passions are concerned, I do not feel it is important to write them out in detail, but a very vague list would be as follows (in no particular order):
Decency
Equality
Honesty
Justice
Integrity
Acceptance
Complicity
Benevolence
Responsibility
(Notice how intelligence doesn't even make the top 10?). Like intelligence, though, these are qualities that cannot be represented by a mere object hanging on a wall or in a bookcase.