Ignorance
I think of myself as a recovering ignoramus…
For the first twenty or so years of my life, I never touched a book, never followed the news, never had any “intelligent” hobbies, and only made it through school with strenuous bullshitting. And now that I’m trying to change all that, I’m suffering the most as result of it.
About a two years ago I started reading stuff. I started reading through past course texts that I had never before even opened, I started following message board debates relevant to current issues, and I started reading a bit of classic and recent literature. I’m one of the most “academically driven” people I know right now (Spend close to six hours a day reading stuff), and I’m still quite stupid; it’s an awkward time for me.
I mean, it sucks. You at first feel like you’re ahead of the game in that you’ve read a few King novels, have a decent understanding of current politics, read most of your course texts religiously (word for word, from cover to cover, etc., whilst most people will just skim through), and have set more than a couple exam curves; you get cocky.
But then you start talking to people of similar interest, and find only experts on the crap of which you’re a relative novice. You’re in neither of two categories that everyone else seems to fit into; those that know jack shit about something, and those that know everything about something, you seem to be the one guy in the world who just knows some stuff about something.
And so, you feel like, and certain people will see you as an ignorant bastard in that you know little beyond the basics of something, even though that’s still much more than most will ever.
A few more years though and I should hopefully be beyond this crap.
For the first twenty or so years of my life, I never touched a book, never followed the news, never had any “intelligent” hobbies, and only made it through school with strenuous bullshitting. And now that I’m trying to change all that, I’m suffering the most as result of it.
About a two years ago I started reading stuff. I started reading through past course texts that I had never before even opened, I started following message board debates relevant to current issues, and I started reading a bit of classic and recent literature. I’m one of the most “academically driven” people I know right now (Spend close to six hours a day reading stuff), and I’m still quite stupid; it’s an awkward time for me.
I mean, it sucks. You at first feel like you’re ahead of the game in that you’ve read a few King novels, have a decent understanding of current politics, read most of your course texts religiously (word for word, from cover to cover, etc., whilst most people will just skim through), and have set more than a couple exam curves; you get cocky.
But then you start talking to people of similar interest, and find only experts on the crap of which you’re a relative novice. You’re in neither of two categories that everyone else seems to fit into; those that know jack shit about something, and those that know everything about something, you seem to be the one guy in the world who just knows some stuff about something.
And so, you feel like, and certain people will see you as an ignorant bastard in that you know little beyond the basics of something, even though that’s still much more than most will ever.
A few more years though and I should hopefully be beyond this crap.