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aelisdeliria lent me a book, called _Welcome to the Ark_, by Stephanie S. Tolan. It's... captivating. I _must_ own this book.The reason I'm writing right now is a quote which I had to share...
"How smart do you feel?"
"Comparatively?"
"No. Just you yourself. How smart do you really feel?"
"Truth?"
"Of course, truth!"
"I've spent my whole life trying not to know how scary it was to have people call me the smartest kid in the world. Because I don't know anything."
*shiver* Yeah. Not to that degree, but yeah.
Re: not very smart?
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It didn't occur to me that anyone could read that as me saying "I'm don't have an exceptionally well developed sense of my own intelligence relative to everyone else". 8->
I *do* think I'm smarter than most. Where I was going with my first comment is not that I think I'm amazingly intelligent (well, I suppose I do), but that I'm a little bit dumb in a world of staggeringly stupid people. 8->
Still : thank you.
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What I got from your first comment was that while you feel smarter than most people, you feel a bit dumb around many of the people that you hang out with. Thanks for the clarification.
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Now this reminds me exactly of a passage in Socrates' Apology... specifically
"I am better off than he is - for he knows nothing, and thinks that he knows. I neither know nor think that I know."
and
"they thought that they also knew all sorts of high matters, and this defect in them overshadowed their wisdom - therefore I asked myself on behalf of the oracle, whether I would like to be as I was, neither having their knowledge nor their ignorance, or like them in both; and I made answer to myself and the oracle that I was better off as I was."
The full passage, which is way too long to post in a comment
begins with
"Chaerephon, as you know, was very impetuous in all his doings, and he went to Delphi and boldly asked the oracle to tell him whether - as I was saying, I must beg you not to interrupt - he asked the oracle to tell him whether there was anyone wiser than I was, and the Pythian prophetess answered that there was no man wiser. Chaerephon is dead himself, but his brother, who is in court, will confirm the truth of this story."
and ends with
"And yet I know that this plainness of speech makes them hate me, and what is their hatred but a proof that I am speaking the truth? - this is the occasion and reason of their slander of me, as you will find out either in this or in any future inquiry."
But I highly recommend the rest of the Apology (http://www.saliu.com/socrates.html), as well. Most edifying reading.
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(Oh nos! Now where will you get/share your same ideas?)
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*looks around in a shifty-eyed manner*
*puts the brains back in a very quick movement, hoping no one noticed*
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Nuuuuffin...
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So as I was saying... Socrates' view of knowledge (knowing that you are ignorant) relates strongly to the earlier quote of "I don't know anything".
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Oh! And her newest book, "Flight of the Raven", sortakinda continues the story of "Welcome to the Ark".
Anyhow, the other book I was thinking of is "A Good Courage".
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Tasty! *she says, as she slowly drowns in book recommendations*
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I don't tend to _have_ book 'types' that I look for, at least not that I can describe. Kinda like my musical tastes...