Intellectual Limits
January 11th, 2007 at 03:24
I think one of my biggest fears in life is reaching my intellectual limits. My other biggest fear is being stabbed up by the homeless.
I’d hate to one day come to the realisation that I simply cannot understand something, and that any attempt to learn something would ultimately end in failure. And the worst thing is that I can already see this happening.
I’m terrible at the sciences. Sure, I got an A at GCSE Science, but I think that must have been my limit: I got an E at AS level Physics and promptly dropped it and resigned myself to a life of staring slack-jawed in wonder at lightbulbs and stumbling around the town centre, hunched over with a coat covering my head, cowering, occasionally glancing upwards, terrified that the sky is going to fall on top of me.
Since I stopped having science lessons nearly four years ago now, I seem to have become unable to comprehend anything that requires more than a balloon-based analogy to understand. At the New Years Eve party I was at a few weeks ago, one of my old science teachers was there (don’t ask), as well as a number of my friends who are studying science subjects at university, and the conversation turned to the sciences. My best contribution to the conversation was asking them what they’d do if a terminator had eczema.
I think the problem is not that I’m stupid- nor that I’m uninterested in the sciences (see various uninformed tirades about evolution or my trip to the space centre), I think I’m just lazy. Unlike politics and history, where you can get away with firing off baseless accusations and warped interpretations of the facts, you actually have to make an effort with science, as unlike artsy subjects where they’ll say “there’s not a right or a wrong answer”, with science there is a right and a wrong answer- and usually the right answer is hideously complex and involves balancing chemical equations, the emission of electrons after absorbing electro-magnetic radiation or playing the gravity of the earth and the moon off against each other.
This means that I can’t just tell my opponent to shut the fuck up and claim that a classical realist would interpret it differently, before making up a fake statistic to back up my assertion.
Is the fact that I’m too lazy to learn about the sciences merely confirming my fears about reaching my intellectual limit? How much higher up in the field of, say, International Relations and Globalisation, can I go before I’m punched in the face by the fist of apathy, and not be willing to argue the toss with its use of knuckle dusters?
I can see it starting to happen too. I’ve reached a level in education where I might have to read say, The Prince, The Communist Manifesto, The Rights of Man, The Road to Serfdom, The Wealth of Nations, The Gospel According to Chris Moyles, and so on… and I can’t be bothered. I’ll read a bullet pointed list, if that’ll earn me any bonus points, but I don’t feel too compelled to read some old-timey bloke tell me old-timey opinions about things that no longer reflect the modern day status-quo, using analogies involving the Holy Roman Empire, or whatever.
I’m terrified that one day I’ll reach a point where I’ll decide to watch a heart-warming ITV premier starring Martin Clunes or Pauline Quirk rather than something that might actually expand my mind.
Another sign this is happening: I’m not sure why point I’m trying to make here.
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