Friday, September 22, 2006

drawing a line

The more you immerse yourself in books – in words, thoughts, ideas, notes, footnotes, anecdotes, history, geography, historiography, et al – there’s one thing that screams out at you from every page: YOU KNOW NOTHING!!! And if this is what the pursuit of knowledge and ideas is all about, so be it. Because there’s so much we know, and that much more we don’t.

But what I know is that reading, and understanding, leads to one thing dangerous –opinions. And the minute you have an opinion – even if it is about the lack of hair on SRK’s chest – you draw a line. Between you and those who don’t agree. Between those that are with you and between those that aren’t, or even worse those diametrically opposite and in opposition to you. Ah! There’s so much we need to know…and so do you.