Buying gifts for people is nice. Yes, Christmas is really a religious holiday but why not throw gifts at people throughout December anyway, even if you're not of the required faith? Why not? The buying is nice, the note and letter writing are pretty good, and the wrapping and packaging is pretty tedious. The worst part by far is the trip to the Post Office and paying the postage. That's the killer, especially when you end up spending more on the postage than the gifts! (If that's not evidence of a tightly budgeted Christmas, then what is?! Or of miserliness, of course...)
The tradition here in Quirky Muffin land is to distribute books wildly to people at Christmas, whether they want them or not, with the scope depending on the budget available. Yes, given enough money, books would fly out to every inhabitant of the Earth. Books are brilliant. If everyone read a book a month, the world would improve dramatically, even if some of the books were scandalous and diabolical! Can there be any doubt about that? It's a serious question. Is it true?
The argument against the proposition would be that people would just read books they agreed with and never challenge their ideas or grow, and it's a potent one. However, arguments that revolve around the mythical 'people' can be exploded by considering the individuals. Some individuals would automatically try out new things and become just that bit more learned, and maybe pass on the habit to others. There would be generation advances. We're not talking about a global population of geniuses here, just a greater tendency toward absorbing knowledge. It's a good thought problem, if only people could be coaxed into reading things not on tiny screens, and picking up some tomes instead. Yes, I'm talking about you, lovers of pictures of cats in fezzes. You know who you are... (Only kidding, folks!)
It's good to be choosy about the words to use: 'learned' instead of 'intelligent', 'individuals' instead of 'people', 'knowledge' instead of 'information'. The words used here mean different things. 'Information' is an essentially meaningless term, but 'knowledge' implies an appreciation and understanding of what has been learned. 'Learned' reflects acquired skills and knowledge, but 'intelligent' indicates a base skill. 'People' have no defining characteristics, only averages, while individuals have sets of all kinds of qualities. We need to think more about the words we use.
Is that enough patronising and pontificating for today? Sometimes the words just flow this way.
O.
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