Recently I considered my lack of understanding of weather. I have seen and heard a weather report just about every day of my life, yet I don't know what pressure patterns or pressure centres or pressure troughs or cold fronts are. Zanne wondered: "didn't you learn about weather in primary school?". Of course, and I'm great at recognising cumulonimbus clouds, but what about the pressure stuff? What about hearing words and not understanding them, and not even realising that I don't understand them until my late 20s, and then not researching their meaning because this all happened while we were driving home and by the time I exited the car this train of thought was long gone.
A few days later I purchased the latest edition of Adbusters in which I read the following:
"My life is suspended above an abyss of ignorance. Virtually nothing I own makes sense to me. What happens when I flick on my light switch? Why does my refrigerator keep my food cold? How does my answering machine record the voices of my friends? When I delete a paragraph on my word processor, what make it disappear and where in the world does it go? In the interest of saving time, as well as out of pure laziness, I, like most people, have deliberately chosen to leave these questions unanswered, preferring to remain unenlightened rather than undertake a lengthy - and, more likely than not, futile - education in thermoelectric currents, vector fields and ionic conduction. I live quite happily hemmed in on all sides by an impenetrable wall of technological riddles. I do not know how the toilet flushes or why water comes out of my faucet or what make my Hoover suck up dust, and yet - to my credit - I continue to flush, wash my dishes and vacuum, entirely unaware of how I am doing these things." *
Isn't it great when you read of someone on the same vibe as you? And when they manage to articulate your thoughts far better than you could ever dream?
Shan
* From Daniel Harris's Cute, Quaint, Hungry and Romantic: The Aesthetics of Consumerism.
A few days later I purchased the latest edition of Adbusters in which I read the following:
"My life is suspended above an abyss of ignorance. Virtually nothing I own makes sense to me. What happens when I flick on my light switch? Why does my refrigerator keep my food cold? How does my answering machine record the voices of my friends? When I delete a paragraph on my word processor, what make it disappear and where in the world does it go? In the interest of saving time, as well as out of pure laziness, I, like most people, have deliberately chosen to leave these questions unanswered, preferring to remain unenlightened rather than undertake a lengthy - and, more likely than not, futile - education in thermoelectric currents, vector fields and ionic conduction. I live quite happily hemmed in on all sides by an impenetrable wall of technological riddles. I do not know how the toilet flushes or why water comes out of my faucet or what make my Hoover suck up dust, and yet - to my credit - I continue to flush, wash my dishes and vacuum, entirely unaware of how I am doing these things." *
Isn't it great when you read of someone on the same vibe as you? And when they manage to articulate your thoughts far better than you could ever dream?
Shan
* From Daniel Harris's Cute, Quaint, Hungry and Romantic: The Aesthetics of Consumerism.
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