The Quest for Knowledge

I love science fiction. I love reading it, and I love writing it, but science fiction has a tendency to make me feel stupid. Perhaps stupid isn’t the right word. Under-educated? Ignorant? In any case, science fiction leaves me feeling that the world is a damn big place, and I don’t know much about it.

Like how am I supposed to sit here, at my desk, and invent a plausible explanation for artificial gravity? That’s asking a hell of a lot! I barely passed high school physics!

But this frustration with a lack of knowledge goes for most writing, even the more down-to-earth stuff (perhaps especially the down-to-earth stuff). How can I write a story with a character who is an investment banker if I don’t know anything about investment banking? How can I write a story about a corporation that takes over the world without knowing the first thing about how a corporation works? How can I write about an avid bird watcher without some credible knowledge of ornithology?

There are any number of ways to go about learning. Read a lot of books, peruse the internet, and ask lots of questions. Go places, see things, meet people. Every time I get around to course selection, I’m always drawn by the obscure electives—the really fascinating stuff that seems to have little practical application (for me anyway) except to further knowledge on a subject. I’m always interested in astronomy, anthropology, art, and linguistics, sciences too. I like the idea of sampling from all walks of life. Even if I don't usually get around to those particular course samplings.

As a child, knowledge was gathered piece-by-piece, by looking through a cheap plastic magnifying glass at a patch of dirt while getting my shoes muddy, or reading a stack of books, whether it be about how to be a detective, castles and knights, or Pluto (I was saddened to learn of Pluto’s demotion—like taking away a part of my childhood learning, not to mention rendering “The Magic School Bus Gets Lost in Space” out of date). There was never any goal to learning, it was all about satisfying curiosity. But along the way from there to here, learning became focused on letter grades, and credits, and began to cost a whole lot more than the price of a dollar store magnifying glass.

The shoes still occasionally see mud—such as the time my first year English class went on a nature hike. Mud was not in short supply.

I do love that evolution. We’re lucky to live in an age of internet and easy travel, where if we want to learn something, we can go and do it, on our own. Or we can learn in a classroom. Knowledge flows freer than ever before. Simply the fact that in our time, as a woman I can gain an education that not so long ago wouldn’t have been possible (or at least very difficult) is pretty darn cool.

So sometimes I feel frustrated about a subject. I don’t know enough, and don’t know where to start finding out, but I just remember, ignorance is the first stage of the journey. Without that initial ignorance, there wouldn't be anything to learn. It’s exciting, to think of all the things I don’t know—yet. There are all the things that I have the potential to learn, and the gravity of that isn’t so artificial.

Happy questing!
Kait