Basket Case

I find acquiring knowledge to be desirable and intimidating in equal measure. I get a real thrill from discovering a new idea or theory, but the expanse of human knowledge is so vast that it can be quite depressing.

Even if nibbling on the sweet cake of enlightenment is a delicious way to spend your time, the fact that it makes only the tiniest of dents renders the whole thing seem pointless. I sometimes feel that way about reading. There's so much literature that I'm sure I should have read. Even if I restrict myself to the 'canon', I've still only read a small percentage of it. And, rather than spurring me on, it discourages me. If I can't read everything, I say to myself, I might as well not read anything. Which is stupid by anyone's standards.

I want to understand everything. I want to know the whole story. When I was about twelve, I had a few episodes of Red Dwarf on video. I was desperate to know the whole story, though. I wanted to know how the series started. I wanted to know how everything came about.

I don't think I can ever be satisfied.

(Of course, when I did find out everything about Red Dwarf, it wasn't as impressive as I'd hoped)

Even if I read every major work of literature, I'd still be frustrated because I didn't know about all the minor works that informed them. Even if I read all of literature, I'd want to know everything about music and film and art. Then there's science and human history, and the entirety of human experience. That's more than an afternoon's work.

I've always been frustrated by the seemingly arbitrary distinctions between academic subjects. At school we compartmentalise maths and science and history and politics, when they're just bullshit lines. Knowledge is like the colour spectrum. We distinctions we make between different colours aren't definitive. Even different cultures 'see' different colours, based on their own method of interpreting light.

I suppose it would be difficult to work out a curriculum without those distinctions, though. Every day would just be five sessions of Double Everything (with the occasional bit of PE).

What makes things worse is I've forgotten things I used to know. I've just been reading the introduction to a book by one of my teachers at Exeter University, Colin MacCabe. The intro references works I studied in his classes, but I can't remember anything about them. I'm sure I learned loads of stuff as an undergraduate that I've completely lost.

The whole knowledge acquisition thing is a farce. I'm shopping in an infinite supermarket (let's say Somerfield), and I need to buy everything, but my basket is only so big. And to make matters worse, there's a hole in it. So every time I manage to pack a new meagre item in, old stuff falls to the floor. If I squeeze in a tin of tuna (Camus) I lose some ham (F.R. Leavis). That must be what hell is like (only hotter and more pointy).

Reading this book is also a bit depressing because its content seems so important. I suppose everyone who is inquisitive and passionate about change seems to take themselves and their cause so seriously. And they must have a personal life away from academia and moral crusades, where they're quite happy and frivilous.

I want to know about stuff, and I want to improve the world, but the notion of being unable to just sit back and enjoy things makes me unhappy.

I feel the same way when seeing a comedian like Bill Hicks or Stewart Lee perform. Anyone who is investigative and sceptical probably acquires a certain cynicism. I'm cynical sometimes.

But I also really like the world. I enjoy being alive, and I'm quite excited to see where the course of human history will take us. And a writer or comedian's acerbic puncturing of our expectations and complacency just ends up making me feel... guilty.

I suppose everyone has to walk that line between scepticism and trust, revolution and satisfaction. And I'm sure even Colin MacCabe can put aside his desire for change and watch cartoons in his pants every now and then.