Knowledge is Power

"You're never too old to learn something new." That's the ol' optimist's cliché, isn't it? The one that's always counter-pointed with "You can't teach a dog new tricks." Well, I am an old dog and well ... I never knew any tricks to begin with. Maybe that's why I welcome actually learning something.

Many of us are too stubborn and set in our ways to accept the fact that we don't know everything. I, for one, have always known that I don't know everything. In fact, it's one of the few things I do know ... hence the reason it's so easy to accept not knowing everything. One thing I do know how to do, though, is run a paragraph into a circle. Much like this one. And I'm too stubborn and set in my ways to stop writing in this "circular-and-going-no-where" method of mine. I know that. I accept it. You, on the other hand, should've just skipped this paragraph. Nothing was said.

I have learned a number of things recently ... some good, some bad ... and am taken aback by just how much I thought I knew. Here's a few example of things I have learned recently:

1) Always read the label on any medications you take, like for example phenazopyridine, so that you don't freak out when you experience harmless yet startling side effects, like urinating the juice from a blood orange.

2) Christmas just seems different when it's 75 degrees and sunny out. Instead of curling around a fire with a hot cup of cocoa you find yourself sitting in a recliner without a shirt on drinking iced tea. That's not very Christmas-y, now is it?

3) I have never been one for "business casual" dress and am ill-prepared for it.

4) Trucks are cool. I don't care who you are, trucks are cool.

5) The cost of living in the South is less than in the Greater NYC Metropolitan area ... but it's odd what doesn't cost less. For example, TV dinners. Banquet TV dinners (yeah, like you've never eaten one) are actually more expensive in North Carolina. Utilities (electric, cable, etc.) are pretty much the same. But I'm not going to complain. I bought a carton of cigarettes and a case of Pabst Blue Ribbon the other day for less than $40 ... try doing that in NYC.

6) We are more dependent upon electricity than we realize. Try going a week with no electricity. You can't do much of anything.

7) That little lizard is right! Geico does have the best auto insurance rates.

8) Kidneys are funky little organs. Did you know that when your kidneys start to fail that you retain fluids ... thus putting on weight? I had always assumed that every illness eventually resulted in weight loss. Not so kidney failure. Weird, huh?

9) VH1 Classic is, by far, the best network on cable television.

Now, I have to admit that I've been guilty, on more occasions that I care to count, of not accepting new knowledge. I think we all have, at one point or another. But in shutting out new information (whether because we're stubborn, proud or have a belief system that forces us to live as though it were 1642) we are robbing ourselves of the sheer joy of learning something new and being amazed at it. The most mundane pieces of information are something to revel in ... so long as I didn't know it before.

Maybe I should go back to school ... ?