Bookworm

I am an information addict. No, no...maybe a book addict. There are so many books I honestly want to read, so many subjects I want to study...but if I do the math, it is simply impossible for me to read all these things in my lifetime. I'm not even a fast reader. I tend to get lost pretty quick if the author decides to toss in a few too many clauses. ...darn you, Faulkner.

But really. How to people find the time to read all these books? How do they study so much? I imagine that, before television, video games, and the great boon and bane that is the Internet came along, people just read for fun, because that really was the only thing you could do, beyond hootenannies and...catillions (sp?). So people learned languages, they read books, they obsessed over Verne and Doyle, and spoke about it with friends much like we all talk about TV shows and movies.

But what's worse, they had a LOT less information than we did! Of course people seemed smarter and more refined...because recent history didn't get in the way of studying classics! I wonder how much information is produced every minute of every day... And people expect us to know all about current events AND the past? AND literary masterpieces? Seriously?

I bet that since the Cold War, we've placed so much emphasis on connecting everything in the past to WWII, and then connecting that to right now, that kids have no hope of ever feeling like they actually know anything. There's just too much info out there.

Maybe things were better (in the short term) when information was harder to come by. You didn't question yourself so much; you just formed an opinion and rolled with it.

Those poor, poor kids who have to study the raging political tornado that was 2000-2010...and write papers on it. I just hope they never ask me for help. My answer would be so disappointing...

"Sorry, kid. I was too busy trying to catch up."

J