Now that I manage to come home a little earlier in the evenings...I have gotten into the habit of watching the TV program Jeopardy...most often I sit quite stunned by the speed of the proceedings, the range of questions...in fact, almost paralyzed by my ignorance...of Shakespeare...of US Presidents...of popular movies...of Olympics...and other things in general...
I marvel at those steely-nerved contestants who answer back accurately in split-seconds, before my brain can even place the question in the global/historical/geographical scheme of things...
And all this hearkens back to mixed emotions associated with the days in Calcutta I tried my hand at "quizzing"...
Quizzing was an art form highly developed and practiced in Calcutta...[well, it probably was an all-India phenomenon, what with the highly popular and competitive and severely demoralizing Bournvita Quiz Contest on radio for years...)...and its high-priest was Neil O'Brien...a slight figure with thick glasses who conducted many of the quizzes with a stupefying range of questions...I participated in several of those quiz contests, as part of my college team and was often left biting the dust...but on occasion we did manage to redeem some honor...
But all along I wondered...if such a test of "knowledge" was really worth anything or was it merely a good exercise for the brain, a sporty jogging of disused memory cells...could I really ever get full and intimate knowledge of history, art, geography, literature...? No, my early education and reading was very spotty...I had read hardly any literature till then, not even "Indian" authors like Tagore, knew little if anything of my own country's history, knew little about anyone associated with the freedom struggle...I did not know my ragas nor my symphonies, I could not distinguish a Degas from a Gauguin from a Picasso from a ...Jamini Roy...maybe...Jamini Roy, yes, but really I knew nothing of anything that mattered...just some bits and pieces of knowledge and other detritus from attempts at schooling...the capital of Burkina Faso is Ouagadougou...Lake Titicaca is the highest lake in the world...the battle of Plassey was fought in 1757 (or was it?)...Cherrapunji in Assam gets the most rain in the world...Mark Twain's real name was Samuel Clemens...
And each vainglorious attempt at proving otherwise by taking part in those quizzes left me with an increased shame at my ignorance...
And all those feelings of transient highs at knowing something about a question, the secret rush of mastery upon having some "clue" about what was being asked...and then crushing disappointments as succeeding question upon question brought no recognition, no context, no clue...which left me hopelessly floundering...all of those feelings revisit me...only...the involvement is a little less personal now...
2 comments:
The more I know, the more I realize how little I know. But then life is meant for continuous learning - if we stopped learning new things, life would get very tedious and boring. That said, some people do not mind living in the relative bliss of ignorance (You don't know what you don't know).... while others like me and apparently, you, continually try to learn more and yet find ourself frustrated at the things we do not know...
That said, the internet is a great power-house - the great leveler - which has made information available to all easily. But, in this digital age, we are data-rich and information-poor... and though there is no reason to censor or filter information, it often becomes a challenge to filter the information to realize what is true and what is not; what is a balanced viewpoint and what is colored with the biases of the writer; what is real and what is 'photoshopped'; ....
Also, another thought about quizzing -- my head is full of factoids but in the long run, what good are they? Does me knowing so much trivia help me in any way compared to the next guy, who knows nothing and cares not that he knows nothing.
Thanks for your comment.
I think knowledge/learning are different from factoids/trivia.
While the latter can arise from the former -- extensive knowledge of history, say, can intimate you of many obscure facts that come in handy when summoned by a question --, the dedicated cultivation of familiarity with a diverse set of facts/trivia is an endless/futile endeavor.
I think the key to most such contests as Jeopardy is certainly wide range of interests, but, additionally, the ability to retain and organize information. I too may have read that the color-name "argenta" stands for silver (from Jeopardy of 2/14/07) but it did not come to me when the question flashed on the screen...
I think it was in one Sherlock Holmes story where he explains how he files away facts, separating the necessary/relevant from that which was of no use...
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