Tuesday, January 16, 2007

All I Know is That I Know Nothing

I've been having some cognitive dissonance, lately. It's a really pesky problem. Basically, I'm worried that I'm not qualified to even be writing for this blog.

I know that I have a broad spectrum of knowledge. I know that I'm better informed than most. Still, I rather embody the cliche "Jack of all trades, master of none." I know a lot about many sciences, but not enough about any to really call myself a scientist of any discipline. My only real area of scientific expertise is psychology, which is pretty simplistic as a science. It's, aside from all the mamby-pamby "study of mind" bullshit that gets bandied around, the study of behavior. I'm very good at it, at least, so I feel confident about speaking on matters of psychology.

But this is a blog about science in general, not just psychology. Hell, I even include philosophy in my title. I'm all over the place! In my own defense, I will have a degree in philosophy soon, so I'll be qualified to confuse you.

I'm not sure where it came from, but this is one of those moments of emotional recognition. I can recognize cognitively that I do NOT know everything, but it's an entirely different thing to recognize it emotionally, and realize, truly realize, that I know very little, and there are others out there who know far more than me. I just don't meet them very frequently. And if I don't keep that arrogance in check, when I do meet them, I'll seem like an ass. I deal with asses every day. I definitely do not want to be one.

Sigh. What can I say? I've managed to knock myself down a peg. I guess it's better than having someone else do it and then pouting for a week. I do that sometimes. So now I'm sitting here, writing for a blog I don't think I'm qualified to write for a readership of what is very likely in the single digits. That's actually kind of funny.

Aw hell. I'm sure if I say something stupid no one will notice.

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