I was having a conversation with my team members about the impact of reading and was surprised that people had so limited view of what is in store for them. Blame it on them not having met me before :). Jokes apart, they never got anyone in their family or circle of friends tell them these things. It is another matter that they should feel it within them, but it never occurred to me before I started as well so can’t blame them.
I spoke to them about the tiny islands of Tokelu and Tuvalu from my list of must visit destinations before I die, and they were totally surprised such places even exist. Showed them what Aurora means, how fascinating it is and what causes it. However, I could not digest the fact that they did not even recollect the difference between nuclear fusion and fission they learned in schools.
I think this all goes back to what our society has traditionally viewed as education. Numerous examinations, peer and parental pressure to excel and come out tops has often rendered children to enjoy education less and mug-up the words only to be written down as it is. It is rarely inspiring for kids to read and learn more than limited to score more. A quote from the movie “3 idiots” perfectly summarizes this situation.
Remember, life is a race. Agar tez nahi bhagoge (if you don’t run fast), toh koi tumhe kuchal ke aage nikal jayega (someone else will just beat you to move ahead)”
I hope people do start realizing sooner than later, that our world is not only has so much to know about, but there is an entire vast universe that the mankind is still struggling to understand and learn more about.
Happy Learning to you! 🙂
PS: You can read the novels, books or magazines or read online on Wikipedia, Quora or Answers.com
India
A post from you after so long! I totally agree with you. I wonder how people can prefer to be so ignorant. Btw I don’t know where those islands are either. Where did you read about them? 🙂
I changed my blog url. Have linked the new one to this comment.
Hey girl – so good to see you back here 🙂 thank you very much for reading through! I have been left wondering what I should write on my blog as I get too busy with everything else I was doing but I want to change that.
The islands I found out when I was randomly browsing through Wikipedia – the smallest countries in the world in particular. That is how I started reading more about them and got fascinated and read much more about them.