Know It Alls

I know a little about a lot of things. I wouldn’t consider myself an expert on anything really. If you need a player in Trivial Pursuit or to answer a random question about some completely useless topic, I’m your girl. But ask me to debate the many intricacies of a particular subject, and you may see my eyes glaze over.

I love hour long documentaries that give you a quick synopsis of a topic. A&E’s Biography program has always been a particular favorite. It’s the Cliff’s Notes version of famous and infamous people’s lives. Maybe it’s the lack of a long attention span or just a disinterest in delving too deeply into any one topic, but I’ve never found something so interesting that I wanted to know everything there is to know about it.

I think there are many people like me in the world today. We like our news in sound bites, our sermons under 30 minutes long and the movies we watch in an hour and a half time frame. If you can’t get to the point quickly, tell us what we need to know in as few words as possible, and make the topic interesting enough to remember, then just don’t bother. I’ve often wondered if this is a modern phenomenon, or have people always only had time for the surface knowledge of things? I tend to believe it is the latter. I think people have always been what a boss of mine once termed “rationally ignorant”. Meaning, we are interested in the issues and topics that affect our lives directly. The rest of the world, while we may not brush it off completely, we don’t pay attention to nearly as closely.

This idea of rational ignorance and short attention spans could explain why it seems that we go from one all important news story to another. It could explain why only two weeks ago the hot topic was Cindy Sheehan and the protestors in Crawford; last week and today the topic is Katrina; and next week the news cycle will probably have moved on to something else. It seems we just can’t commit too much of our attention to one thing for very long. Oh, there will still be stories on the back pages about the topics above, but the general focus will have moved on to the next “big” thing.

Many may consider this a negative aspect of human behavior, but I don’t necessarily agree. Perhaps a bit of public A.D.D. (Attention Deficit Disorder) is what helps humanity do the next big thing. Almost like a giant check list. “Finished with that – what’s next?” If, as a society, we spend too much time and concentration on one thing, how will we ever get to the next important discovery or the next big problem to solve? I believe this gives society as a whole an opportunity to pick where we will need experts.

My sister and I have recently discovered the joys of cruising. We leave in a few weeks for our next trip and are looking forward to the adventure. Someone asked me the other day why we decided to cruise rather than to pick some place and just go there. After talking a while about the cost benefits of the all inclusive trip and the variety of people in one place at one time, I explained that the true reason I enjoy cruising so much is because I get to visit a bunch of places in one trip and figure out where I want to go and stay for awhile.

I think this is why none of us are experts in everything. I don’t think that we are made up that way. It is a great thing to be able to experience a little of everything in life and for those who choose, to pick the topics in which they wish to be experts. The most brilliant people in the world can only claim to be brilliant in certain areas. The world just doesn’t need any “know it ALLS”.