Every person wants to think that their thoughts are of a cultivated, higher order, right? Don't we all walk around thinking we are capable of understanding the basic concepts, of grasping the essentials without burning out too many grey cells?
It's possible, of course, that there are those who really don't give two shites if they are perceiving the world as it actually is, or whether or not they are wise to the workings of the Universe. Reality for them may be centered around something other than pondering the mysteries of life or investigating what constitutes the limits of one's own intellectual development.
Hell, for a lot of people, I imagine just finding a way to earn a decent living and coexist peacefully among fellow humans is quite enough in terms of self-realization. Not everyone gives a hoot about philosophers or sages.
Maybe it's a result of practically living in a library as a kid, but curiosity, about what it is possible to know, about what it is possible to learn, has always been a part of what makes me go.
Not that I'm some Megalopsychos (fcuk if that's not the most pretentious thing I've ever written), but I do enjoy crackin' open a good website and reading about some discovery or revolutionary new concept. I absolutely love the age we are living in - how anyone can possibly believe that we are not living in the best of times is well beyond the keen of my intellect.
Just about everything the human race has ever learned (and was astutely recorded) is available via this wonderful thing called the Internet.
Have a hankerin' to know how Confucius summed up the qualities of a learned man? Want to read how Ernest Rutherford came about determining that the energy involved in radiation was internal? Stumped by the seeming dichotomy between magnetic and electric lines of force? Boom goes the Internet!
These days you don't even need a PC (or Mac) to access all that delicious, nutritious information. It's mind-numbing to consider that my cell phone is a far more powerful computer than what was used to put man on the moon.
Which means that all of us, at least all of us with cell phones that have Internet access, can strive to improve our thinking, eh? Learn a new word or two everyday, maybe broaden the ol' horizons? Well, that's what I'm shooting for.
And, as a bonus, I can surreptitiously check the score of the game while I'm sitting in a dull meeting, too
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