Too Much Information

All the parts are in order to get started on my next math class. The right calculator, a TI 84 platinum, silver edition. The textbook. The answer book. The work book.

I think I've got a pretty good head start. I've kind of learned the language the book uses and can do a whole lot of new stuff on the calculator that I will need.

But still. There is so much to learn.

So that got me thinking (again) about motivation.

I have myself pretty convinced, just because I decided to, that to be an educated person in the 21st century, I need to know calculus. Not for any practical reason that I know of. Just to know it. Sorta like how we are told that we need to know about Shakespeare or Plato or the Declaration of Independence.

But then I started thinking about what today might be the futility of deciding anything is something you "must know" to be an educated person. There is just too much information.

I was just over at my friend Keith's house. He just got a "wi-fi" radio that can play something like 30,000 radio stations from all over the world. It's pretty amazing and the sound is great.

And the hundreds of TV channels and billions of web pages and millions of blogs and hundreds of thousands of books and photographs and songs and subjects and subjects within subjects. Wikipedia is approaching 3 million articles. And that's only in their English version.

Doesn't it seem just a little nutty for any individual or committee to say to anyone else that "to be an educated person you must know and understand" this or this or this? Or at least arbitrary?

So, do you just pick your curiosity and go with it? If you can earn a living and help keep yourself and those around you fed, warm, and healthy, I guess, why not?

A girl in my features class last semester hadn't heard of Chaucer. My immediate reaction was surprise and even a little shock. At the same time, she could rattle off the names of 50 indy bands that I had never heard of and also describe their repertories. Way more useful to her and the people who matter to her than the Canterbury Tales.

All this got me thinking back to Viktor Frankl, his book, Man's Search for Meaning, and the whole idea of logotherapy. Is it good enough for any individual to derive meaning from anything they choose to do and find meaning in? Because you can't even begin to do or learn everything, or even imagine what everything to learn might be.

But right now, I need to learn more about functions.