Kennen und Machen

...and the reader responses were astounding! I guess that means I don't really have the 5+1 readers that I thought I had. Which is fine, it gives me more freedom to write whatever I want. :)

Recently, I've been sacrificing certain hours of my sleep for entertainment (in the form of streaming TV shows online). On Tuesday night, this meant watching 5 episodes of My Own Worst Enemy. Last night, it meant nearly the entire first season of Natsume Yuujinchou. Meanwhile, there are still two Shakespeare plays and a long Whitman poem waiting to be read. I think the problem is, I'm still in vacation mode. But all my courses are turning out to be pretty interesting though.

The extraordinary thing is, the entire time that I was watching episode after episode (a process that wasn't passive at all) and looking at the clock, I kept telling myself that I should be sleeping, or at the very least, doing the readings for my courses. And yet I was lying in bed, filling my mind with fantasies of espionage and the supernatural. Did I know better? Sure, of course. And yet, although at every moment between 10:00pm and 5:30am, why isn't it that I didn't turn off the lights and fall asleep? Surely there must be a reason.

I find that there is a huge difference between "knowing better" and having the strength or discipline to actually follow through with one's knowledge/wisdom. In fact, I have nothing but the highest respect for people who are able to discipline themselves to a mechanical level. (Although sometimes it freaks me out when they'd turn everything into a routine.)

My point though, is basically that although most of us have a fair amount of knowledge on how things should be done, most of us don't necessarily go through with them. I would even go so far as to argue that this is in itself a form of intelligence. After all, pragmatically speaking, what use is your knowledge unless you use it? I think this has clear applications beyond the maintanence of one's health as related to sleep, or the regular readings for school. I find that it also applies to the interactions between humans, where we *know* it's better to, say, seek immediate contact for a quick apology and patch things up, and yet history is rife with examples where fathers have died at odds with their sons, or couples permanently separated by pride and obfuscated misunderstandings.

So why don't we smarten up and actually follow through with this obvious wisdom? Why do we find it so difficult to employ our knowledge towards creating healthier lifestyles, healthier relationships, and a healthier planet? Why do we get so blinded by greed and pride that we fail to take responsibility for our actions against ourselves, against others, and against the planet? I think this is the point that separates true proponents of alternative ways of thinking from those who spout nonesense just for the sake of intellectual individuality. Sure, it's easy to say "there is no God" when the dominant ideology is God-fearing, but how easy would it be to espouse the same view when your response could lead to the potential deaths of millions? When the stakes are high, most fall silent.

Semi-heavy post, I guess. But if you know better, do it! Help contribute to the overall intelligence of the human race. :)