I want to see who, if anyone, is right about all of the political debates today.
I want to know what happens at the end of our nation, the end of Western civilization, the end of humanity. I want to know what caused the end, and what comes next.
I want to know what happens with the end of life as we know it. I want to know the beginning end of life as we don’t yet know.
I want to know how it all happened.
I want to see the answers that science gives us in fifty, a hundred, a thousand years from now. I’d almost settle for learning everything that science has shown us so far.
I want to learn the answers to every question. I want to find all of the questions that nobody has thought to ask yet, and I want the answers to those as well.
Eh. I bet it’s a lot more fun to be a mad scientist anyways. Normal scientists don’t get to do their research in nifty spooky old buildings with secret passageways and giant pipe organs.
I tried knowing everything once. I enjoyed it, but the people around me didn’t so much, and kept calling me an arrogant prick. Now that my mind is going and I can’t even remember what I had for lunch today, those people who will still have anything to do with me (are the number is vanishingly small) are much nicer to me.
So take your choice. As Elwood P. Dowd once said, "Years ago my mother used to say to me, she’d say, ‘In this world, Elwood, you must be’ - she always called me Elwood - ‘In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant.’ Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me. "
(My problem is that I’m too old now to learn how to be pleasant.)
I second this. The more I’ve learned (specifically, about the physical sciences), the more I’ve realized what I have yet to learn.
I’ve always thought that 250 years ago, it might be possible to know everything that everybody else knew, at least concerning physics, chemistry, ect. (More properly stated as "all the knowledge humans in my part of the world are aware of) However, today, that is not possible. Heck, for all I know, maybe one person hasn’t known “everything” since humans made the leap from hunter-gatherers to an agricultural society?
Wasn’t there a novel where someone does learn everything, and it drives
him (her) totally crazy? Or am I thinking of the Cthulu mythos where if you truly
understand the nature of the Old Ones your mind automatically melts down?
It might be boring to know everything. But I’d like to know enough about ‘everything’ (at least the ‘olgies’ and ‘ics’ and such) to be able to pursue further study.
And I’d like the time to study them and also engage in my hobbies.
I don’t want to know everything, I just want to remember everything I’ve ever learned but have since forgotten. All that info I learned in school and then forgot once the exam was over? I want it back. All the stuff I researched to allow me to delve into one project or another, used during the project, then disappeared upon completion of the project? I miss it.