I am a geek. I know this about myself. I have always loved to know things. Trivia is a great love of mine. The internet is the treasure trove of my dreams. I think that's one of the reasons being an attorney was a perfect career fit for me: there are so many things in the law to know and knowing legal things is so helpful in so many situations. Now I realize (well conceptually at least) that there are many things in this world that are not worth knowing. I struggle with this concept. I never have been one to tell dirty jokes or otherwise salacious stories, but I still wanted to get the jokes. It was important to me to know the underlying knowledge that made them jokes in the first place. Finally I am beginning to question the merit of this aspect of my knowledge habit.
Recently I traded some facebook emails with an old friend from highschool. I teasingly chided him for being left out of one of those listing notes that are currently so popular on the site. His reply was that this particular note had a habit of generating questionable responses and he wanted to spare me the exposure. That bothered me. And it took me a while to tie it back to my knowing problem. But I finally realized that his exclusion bothered me because there were things that he didn't want me to know, that he thought I might not already know, that he thought I might not want to know. And after stewing for a while on this point, it suddenly occurred to me that I should be flattered. That it was okay that he was right: there are things that I don't know, don't want to know and even more that there are things that it is a good idea that I not know. You may say duh. That's fine. You probably don't have the knowing problem I do. I have always believed the adage that knowledge is power. So, I guess in this respect, I'm just a power junkie. And like all junkies, I found myself blinded by the desire for power to the point that I failed to see that not all power is good. Not all knowledge is good. There are things I am better not knowing. I will always struggle with wanting to know things and recognizing which things I really don't want to know. I know this now. And, as they say, knowing is half the battle.
What do you know that you wish you didn't? What sort of a junkie are you?
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3 comments:
I'm somewhat of a junkie about knowing things as well (and I've definitely had regrets when I just have to read about something, even if I know it will upset me), but really I'm just a candy junkie. That's about it. :)
Maybe I would have to say I'm a blogging junkie. I seem to check people's blogs 3 and 4 times a day just waiting to catch a new post. Pathetic I know but it's kind of become my ritual along with checking email all the time. I have definitely found out stuff from people's blogs that I wished I didn't know....mostly seeing pictures of a big group of my friends at parties or dinners that we weren't invited to. I hate feeling left out and wondering why I'm never quite cool enough to be in the "cool" group. I guess I've always felt that way...so junior high and yet through these blogs I'm reliving it all the time. Ugh!!
I'm a gossip junkie. Its stupid, but I just love hearing the stories. It's something I need to work on and DH reminds me all the time. :)
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