changing seasons
It’s been raining, and that makes me sad… but this isn’t that type of blog.
There are so many reasons to love rain. It makes all of the plants I love grow, it provides fresh water to our lakes and rivers, cleans our streets and cars for free. Yet, I can’t shake these rainy winter blues sometimes. Every year I forget how real the phenomenon of ‘cabin-fever’ is. I’m itching to get out of my house with nowhere to go sometimes.
Living internally ‘dressed-up with nowhere to go’ is kind of like running your car at 2000 RPMs in park. It’s annoying and you’re probably pissing off whoever you live with. Yet, this fall/winter I plan on taking a different approach.
Much like in my first post, I’m putting myself into action. I’m shifting the car out of park and into the world, even if it’s just the world of YouTube. I’ve been choosing to take these rainy nights to re-educate myself. It’s been almost ten years since any kind of formal schooling, so it’s very fun to come back to education with a completely different perspective. One that places curiosity over the curriculum.
In the last few weeks here are some of the topics I’ve learned about from books, podcasts, and smart friends.
Prominent Historical Native Americans
Native American Rituals and Spirituality
Options Trading, How to Place Call/Put Orders
The Autobiography of Nikola Tesla
How to Identify Different Types of Trees
Early Christian History (0-500 AD)
How To Think Creatively and Outside The Box
Modernizing The Insurance Industry (Flirting with the Uninterested)
That every part of a caribou is edible (except for the poop) (yes, even the antlers).
Scientists gave mice a vaccine that altered their microbiome/biota to protect them from inflammatory diseases like obesity and diabetes, and it worked.
There’s so much more but that’s what I was able to recall off the top of my head. It makes perfect sense to me now that a book is the perfect companion on a rainy day! I think we all have an unending charge of curiosity deep within us. If you haven’t experienced that in a while, I’d encourage you to do some self-dialogue and ask why. I heard an old man say the other day: “If we would’ve had Google at my age, we would have never stopped Googling and reading about things”, now whether this is true or not, it resonated with me. The truth is, many of us have become fully spoiled with information.
We have so much access, that we seek for nothing.
There is no thrill or mystery of hidden knowledge anymore. Instead, we’ve become a collective that is satisfied with 8-second answers from Google AI. For me, part of the battle was just remembering that I had the capacity to understand complex subjects and that is something that is probably good for me to keep exercised. Having knowledge of complex structures and ideas will always give you an upper hand, in comparison to just holding trivial knowledge. For instance, someone with only trivial knowledge of mechanics and engineering can answer “What makes a car run?”. Easy, gas. But, they may have a more difficult time with “How does gas make a car run?” or “Why…”.
You see, we often are only getting a fraction of the answer we are seeking when we don’t engage our curiosity by researching and educating ourselves. When you know concepts, like how an engine works, you can apply that concept in a myriad of ways. Maybe you think of a new way to innovate, or you apply your knowledge to a field that hasn’t incorporated it yet. Whereas, simple factual information does not usually prove as useful. It’s past midnight now, so I’ll be done rambling.
Hopefully, the blues stay away, but until the sun comes back I’ll be studying for fun.