Learning and thirst for knowledge

One of those subjects I cannot leave alone. I believe that there is a moment in life when many people just stop learning. I cannot say if it is deliberate or an accident, or just how that feels, but people stop wishing to learn something new every day, and even, if possible, would prefer if things did not change much, in terms of knowledge required.

Which is why with all new advances, usually the youth absorb it quickly, while a few adults manage to hang on to it, while most just ignore it.

In the past that created a whole school of thought waiting for Techno-shock to appear, that moment when technology would change so quickly people could not cope. However they did not count with the market forces. So although most people have no idea, nor interest, in the technology that makes things possible, marketeers just force things so they are presented to be accessible with the old skill set, or at least within the skill set of a substantial part of the population.

This limits many developments (virtual reality, integrable computers in mundane items, virtual battlefield) and makes most recent inventions with a big impact those that use an existing skill set, from mobile phones (although some of its uses are limited to a few and the young) to the CD, or from PDAs to internet auctions.

This reflection came about thinking about one of those books that describe the obvious about the situation of the world, and then tell people to relax because we know what is happening so it is under control.

I could not understand how someone could read such a book a dozen times. You may read it once, depending on your information, and then you either agree or disagree. That's it. I could not understand the reader was unable to learn from the book, so there was no persistence so he had to read it every time to be tranquilized.

I will not discuss the fallacy that believing you have described a problem means the problem is solved. There are problems that the more you know, more worrisome they become, and many of them are those people write this kind of books about, from global outsourcing to wahabism.

I suppose that explains most of television, as well, as there is no problem in recycling most material as anyway, the watchers will not learn and be ready for more of the same (with some changes, as they still prefer novelty as well).

I suspect it is a social driven event. You are an adult, your life will be such and such, for the rest of your life. That cauterizes the learning instinct. And they say such charming messages as "I know enough" or "It has always been that way."

Most late learners have some stunted adulthood, and if I may so, retain some childish habits. I relish them because that is a good sign.

As well, I suspect this limited learning helps a lot social stability, while an excess of learners brings social disorder and uncontrolled change. Because being able to keep learning is no guarantee of good thinking, or even reasonable thinking. It just means a greater adaptability, good if the person is good, bad if the person is bad. And often I feel the bad are more predisposed to learn. Society rejects them, so they have to look for their own.

However, learning is one thing and thinking is another. I often feel that those that stop learning can hone their skills to levels I cannot fathom, working as I am in just learning one other new thing or trying the last new item. At least, I hope that explains why there is always someone better than I am.  ¶ 2:23 PM 0 comments

  Why I left

What a flurry of activity. I do not know if it is a real recovery or the last self justifying efforts before pulling the plug. But there are a few things I wanted to tell.

The only link to this blog comes from a private shared blog. I suppose someone may have stumbled on this by chance, but I doubt someone would have come visiting twice. So either you got the link from me, or someone who knows me, or you are in the blog.

I was invited to that almost two years ago, and it very quickly became a very important part of my life. In a way, it was as if I had the teenage gang I had not had.

And as a teenage gang, it was unstable. Some people left, some "couples" formed. New members came. But in general things went well. There was a strong feeling of community, with a very limited need of commitment.

Those projects that were pulled out were marvelous, as you had a tangible proof that a fragile spiderweb spread through the globe could get physical results in your hand.

Some people met in the flesh, and that brought an undercurrent, a division, involuntary but inevitable, between those I had met and those that I hadn't. As well, I also felt closer to a few members than the rest. And in a way, that deeper link meant I felt less linked to those remaining, that anyway were also a quite different lot from the people I had joined.

So one year ago I decided to leave. Even made a farewell soundtrack, prepared a small speech. Mainly because nostalgia for the past was killing the present, and I was getting more or less what I wanted from other places. Forums, e-mail, and this blog for those speeches I wanted to make but I did not feel others had to sit through without forewarning.

In brief, it was good but not good enough.

However the idea of leaving sparked a revival of the group spirit. And I hit it off with some of the new arrivals. So I shelved the farewell speech and soldiered on.

Meeting a few more just confirmed that there was a clear difference between those you met, for me, and those you had not.

I kept it up a few months, but what I wanted I usually got it from other sources. As well, I was not the only one in partial retirement. So to end it, the 25th of February I just placed the shelved farewell speech in an unobstrusive corner and left. Avoiding those noisy farewells I had been unable to face once already.

I visit at times, and a few times I feel the urge to post something. But I know most check a forum I am still posting, and e-mail will eventually reach its target.

And now it is like that summer when you made several new friends, and they were nice, and strange and interesting beyond belief. But the following year, the most interesting one was gone, the same jokes grew stale, and you could not talk with the others what you had been exchanging in letters through the winter with one of them. And one look showed that others felt the same, both the staleness and the private communications channel.

So, as I said earlier, I left to preserve the good memories, cutting my losses when the going was good. Selfish? Yes. But my resources are limited, and I cannot reach everything. Better a clean cut than an incomplete, unsatisfactory presence.

But I will still meet some of them this summer, I hope, and I look forward to it.  ¶ 8:44 PM 0 comments

  Absence

I have been absent the last weeks, and mostly on-off the last month. As a matter of fact, I am considering dropping the blog, as I am getting most of the same effect through e-mail with several different people (who probably constitute a sizable fraction of the readers anyway). Although in the past that helped outline several rants I particularly enjoyed, now there are too many personal details involved that it becomes hard to separate one kind of content from the rest.

There are still a couple of "almost ready to post" subjects that I will probably finish. But I feel I am writing too much already to sit down here and write some more.

That said, it is not the first dry phase, nor the longest. And probably at some step I will run out of books, my friends will run out of patience and stop writing back, and it will not be so desirable to go to the cinema in the afternoon.

But I feel it is a very good sign when I compare myself to one year ago, when I was almost overwhelmed by the need to get some things out of my system. Well, they are probably spread all out through here and a couple hundreds e-mails and a few letters, because I certainly do not feel that opression any longer. There are others, of a different kind, but they are more private.

Which reminds me there is another post I have to make. And probably soon.

It is strange, but it probably it is a matter of custom, but now that I have almost finished a post, I feel the need to keep on writing. But it is not the need to rant, it is the need to explain myself. And that is something I would like to curb.

So I apologize for all those times you clicked the link or the bookmark, to see the same heading once again. Go Post Secret instead. It changes once a week, and it is more real than anything I can write here.  ¶ 8:24 PM 0 comments

  Games

I have a weird relationship with all kind of games, although by reasons of their availability it becomes more serious with computer games. My obsessive nature has been already discussed. Of course, games that require one or several opponents do not get out of hand, specially as I limit myself to avoid internet games (that would be a deep pit indeed). So the only games I can play for hours day in, day out are computer games.

Not even new games. I value plot over graphics, and addictive quality over everything. At least that saves me money, as many games from the eighties and nineties can be had for free now. But it does not take less time.

All of this is just to explain that I am currently spending too much time playing a Turkish game, Mount and Blade, created by a husband and wife development team, which supposedly will have a medieval like RPG plot. What really makes this game special is the simulation of riding combat, both the good and bad. After a few hours playing it (and with the skeletal plot options of the beta version it is just an excuse to engage in combat). So I just get my mob of mercenaries and go looking for trouble. Which usually ends with me senseless and without troops. But that is just an excuse to raise some more and go looking for revenge.

Last week I thought I had broken the addiction, but a series of bad games and finishing a good book brought me back in its hands and the sweet release of virtual violence. And virtual punishment as well.  ¶ 12:19 AM 0 comments