I'd rather be smart than sane

As you can tell, if you're paying attention, I lost interest in the whole "self help" experiment days ago. I tried to take it seriously, but every book I checked out of the library bored me practically to tears. It's not that I don't want to be helped, I just think there are better ways of going about it. I go to therapy every other week. My therapist is awesome. She tells me that all the things I feel, all the things I worry about, are perfectly normal. I'm not a freak, I'm not all that insane. We make progress. I figure that by making myself go every other week, I'm helping myself. So why drag myself and anyone who may actually be reading this through a tedious experiment when I think we all know what the end result would be. I am trying to change my way of thinking, but not because a book told me how to do it. I'm trying to be more positive, less doom and gloom. Although quite often, the only thing I'm "positive" about is the fact that I'm pretty screwed right now. But at least I'm positive about something! Yay for that!

Instead of self-help, I'm going back to my great love: self-education. Ever since Jake was born, I've grown lax on my goal to learn everything there is to know about everything under the stars. I did go to school and took some pretty difficult and intense classes, but that can't be classified as self-education. I used to pick a subject, absorb as much information as possible on it, then move on. I learned more about sleep in a month than most people learn in a lifetime (although none of it stuck apparently, because here I am at 2am wide awake. I'm usually just getting off the phone about now, but someone got his ass kicked by cold medicine, so I'm making do with the internet).

I think the pursuit of knowledge is one of the most important adventures a human can take. I think too many people are too content to learn only what they need to know for their chosen field, or worse, learn nothing at all and let other people figure things out for them. I want to know everything. I want to know how the human body works, how ancient civilizations survived, how a microscopic bug can wipe out millions, why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings. I don't understand how so many can be happy to just know how to eat, sleep, breathe, and fuck.

So instead of reading random, boring self-help books, I'm currently reading Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower by William Blum. I've learned a lot about the horrible things our country has done to other countries in the world. I don't understand how we, the people, did not know about these things before, and if we did, why the hell we would let it continue. It hasn't exactly been the cathartic, healing sort of experience that I would have gotten from, say, the Secret, but it's been enlightening and at least I'm learning something.  I highly recommend it. Next, I'm either going to further educate myself on censorship of the press throughout history, or read about the various parts of the human brain more in depth than I went into in nursing school. Someday, I'll have amassed as much knowledge as my hero Ken Jennings, and will be able to kick ass on Jeopardy. That's always been the goal. Sane is great and all, but I'd really rather be smart. I kind of don't think you can have it both ways.