Monthly Archive for February, 2008

The Thirst For Knowledge

Recently I’ve been doing a fair amount of reading and it’s been a great refresher, for both getting me thinking about random ideas and exploring some new areas. It has also certainly helped changed my perspective toward college, in regards to just wanting to learn for the sake of learning.

Knowledge and time are two things are finite. Everyone has the same amount of time in a day to learn and nearly everyone can learn the same basic knowledge now, thanks to the Internet. However, not everyone spends the same amount of effort learning. After overloading myself with some really good books, I just started to notice how much more insightful I was becoming and how useful those books were for shaping my ideas. I think reading is something that more people should practice on a daily basis. Becoming lazy and unmotivated is terrible in the long run and such a waste, when your time here is limited.

Something else that I began to notice while reading these good books was the simple joy that I was getting just from learning about a topic in an organized and thought-out manner. I think this is something key that I have begun to use at school, to appreciate things more. I’ve been taking a class recently that is a general computer class, covering almost every function of a computer and how it all works. I wasn’t exactly happy at first because I thought the class would be more focused on one area in specific, but afterwhile, I became quite satisfied with the depth of the knowledge and the manner in which it was presented. My teacher was quite good at what he does and the slides and book combined are great resources. After getting over my initial disappointment, I really just began to appreciate the class for the knowledge that I was learning. It’s great to be able to just appreciate knowledge for the sake of knowledge and get something out of that. This is definitely a lifelong philosophy that I will try to improve.

The Gods Must Be Crazy

I sit here tonight with a glass of wine, watching a wonderful movie called “The Gods Must Be Crazy.” It was released in 1980 but I’m still salvaging something of value from it.

It follows the story of a simple tribe of hunter gatherers in Africa, a group of people who take life for what it is, living in the harsh desert and enjoying life. There is no hate, no greed, no possession, just life and survival. It’s something that I wish I could enjoy. The movie then contrasts modern day life, with how modern man adapts his environment to suit him. Modern man must spend 18 years in school learning to adapt to his environment and as someone in school, learning to adapt currently, I found this quite amusing. Why do we spent almost a quarter of our lives to learning how to live, how to adapt, rather than just enjoying what we have. I’m torn sometimes between continuing my education and stable environment versus moving to Canada and enjoy the simple pleasures of life. I think it’s smart to always challenge what you hold dear and this was simple movie provides another interesting example of doing so.