"i went to the library and walked out with a couple of books about oscar wilde and my thought was: what would i say if someone asked me what i had the books for? i mean it's not like i'm in school or anything, so they're not for a report or anything. my post on my blog about oscar wilde is done so i don't need them for that. yet i have two books to read in my arms. and then it hit me. i began to think about when kids are learning algebra and they question why they have to. and when they stuff like i won't need to know this when i get out of school; and how they'll never see some kinds of math again in their lives; and sometimes they're right. the truth is, once you pass a certain level of high school math, you don't use a lot of the stuff you learn after that unless you have a job based in math or science. but still it's that kind of thinking that led me to ask myself this question. "does believing you don't need to know something mean you shouldn't learn about it?" because i've heard people say that a lot. "that doesn't interest me...i'm content with ignorance". well, that isn't exactly what they say but it's what i hear. hmmm...i guess me having the books about oscar wilde prove i don't believe that. because i don't need to be able to quote him or to be able to say i've read him; but in all honesty, being a man who can and has is being the man that i want to be. which makes me think that the determining factor towards wanting to be more than you are, whether it's calculus in high school or james joyce now, is if you actually want to be more than you are. or if you're content with being what you are. well, i'm just a dude; a regular dude; but i want to be a vivaldi-playing, faulkner-reading, some ancient greek philosopher-quoting, gauguin-appreciating dude. i guess what i'm saying is i want to be a man who is about more than what he sees."
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