Someone told me that on the Internet, the key is to avoid most of the run-of-the-mill-no-value-adding content. Because that takes up a lot of time! I think that is as important as identifying good content.

BTW, I have uploaded my image in Gravatar. Let’s see if it comes along with this comment

Destination Infinity

I really appreciate your writing. And you are right about that empty feeling with google reader and the good feeling with a book. I have found the audio books on audible have helped me a lot because I can exercise, or clean house, and still be reading. That service has enhanced my life so much it is not even funny.

Kind of like the quote on the GE building in NYC Rockefeller Center: “Wisdom and Knowledge shall be the stability of thy times”

except it should be more like

“Widsom and Knowledge shall be the prosperity of thy life”

Your essay expresses my sentiments spot on. I’m hitting 30 soon. I’ve seen the web and “instant information” explode over the years and yet, it occurred to me that I’m actually missing the days at school.

So, now, little over 5 years out of college, I find myself too going back to books and taking time off the web.

While it’s great to have instant information at your fingertips, it’s much more fun to explore it for yourself. Having to take the extra effort to learn just makes it stick longer to you. That moment where information becomes knowledge, that’s what we’re after.

This post got something which has shaken my feelings. and I felt my school days. I miss those days. Classes, lost of fun. and after coming home, I used to read books.

The novels, the travelogue, stories…. were the feed of my heart… I miss those days!

Nice writing!

I have to say I hadn’t thought about it much, but ever since he brought it up that’s all i can think about. Can’t say I’ve done any sort of quantitative study or anything, but I think it’s safe to say I might actually sleep less now then I did when I was still at University….

kinda makes me wish I’d started on my To-Do list back then: I’d most likely be reaping the benefits of it now in Zzzz.

Excellent article. It echoes some of what I have been feeling lately – I feel as though I squandered my college education as well. I believe I chose the wrong field, and now I have such a strong desire to learn more – something new, something different and go in that direction. The thirst for knowledge hasn’t gone away, and every day I come to the realization of how much I don’t know and how much I want to learn.

Reading the encylopedia from cover to cover sounds like a better idea to me now after hearing who has done/wants to do it.

Personally, I don’t know if I’m up to the challenge but then maybe I’m just not giving myself enough credit.

That is what I am trying to create in my school, classrooms that have “free” learning time where students can use computing tools for the pleasure of learning. I am just not sure how to change the standards movement to make this possible. Ideas? I read your article in the Houston Chronicle and one point you made intrigued me, so I looked you up to get more feedback. Now writing the technology application standards for Texas has been lost to your interlinked website. Do you think all students should be given the opportunity to learn to read source code as part of literacy education? Blogs like you run allow HTML programming, should all students learn this? If yes, how do we provide the computing resources to make the shift to 21st century learning that can allow students to explore and love school? How do we write standards to give students the opportunity to choose-your-own-adventure of information?

This struck a chord for me. As someone who was home-schooled until high school, I read about 3-5 books a week on my own. Once I hit the formalized ‘education’ system, I hardly read any books unless they were for school. 5 years out from college, I’m just starting to get back into it.

It’s amazing–I probably only spent 2 hours a day learning things somewhat formally when I was home-schooled, but I still managed to pick up on the canon of knowledge that schools seem to need 8-10 hours a day to force on their students.

The Wkikpedia point also made me smile–my wife bought the app for her smartphone and we looks stuff up in the car when the conversation demands –how else would I have learned the minute-by-minute breakdown of the events that caused the Three Mile Island disaster while traveling between Philly and Boston?

Maybe that’s really the reason that books and other unique sources of wisdom and knowledge work so much more effectively than a formalized curriculum. The former are inextricably tied to real life and real experiences, whereas the latter are truly just ‘examples’ and hypotheticals.

I’ve found that it is true that the more you learn the less you know.

You’ll never know it all. Consider yourself lucky if you know enough to know to keep learning.

You are still young, as am I (in fact I’m much younger than you), but at some point we will have to “dispense our thirst for books” and realize that we cannot learn everything. Instead, learn what you want to learn, and intertwine that into your career/life as you go along.

I prioritize my education by reading books first, doing schoolwork second, and pursuing business ideas and web-related reading/hacking third. After I’m out of school, maybe business ideas will be first priority, but it’s too far off to tell now.

Wonderful, thought-provoking post. You’ve got to put in the energy to reap the most healthful, calorie-full writing. So simple and true.

Ever been to a diner very late in the middle of nowhere? Nevada, Arizona, Montana…

Ever take a walk for miles in a city you thought you knew well?

Ever talk to an old man drinking coffee at 4 AM in a Waffle House in the South?

Ever sit down and have a few cold ones and maybe a few cigarettes knowing nobody at a hotel bar and nobody knowing you to strike up a conversation that leads to an epiphany?

Ever read a book called Nonzero, the logic of human destiny?

Ever take a ride in wide open spaces in the sunset to stop the car and park off the edge of a massive cliff to see the new bridge being built over Hoover Dam?

Ever been to the shady parts of a town to watch and learn economics that can change the world?

Ever tried eating at El Taco Veloz on Buford Highway in Atlanta Ga to learn the beauty of simplicity and of humility?

Ever been to the missile capital of the north and had your hair buzzed while talking to owner who just opened your mind to something so vast while pondering the future of nanotechnology?

Each person, each place is a classroom. Books are indeed soul food but so is life my man…