Friday Favorites: The Quest for Knowledge (and other nerd things)

Hello, friends! Thanks to all who checked out the pictures of our house from my last post, and for the kind and encouraging comments I received from many of you. As I am sitting here waiting for Husband to get home from work, I realized it's Friday, and that means I need to post about one of my favorite things. As I meandered through several topics in my mind, I realized two things: 1. I am going to need to at least attempt to be sneaky subtle in how much I write about things of a culinary nature (aka, I can't always just write about food/drink, despite the fact that they make up about 92.6% of my favorite things in life, and that they are always what come to mind first when thinking of a topic). And, 2. I am a nerd. I MUST be, because following the several food passions that came to mind, the passions I immediately thought of included reading books, the study of languages, and being a grammar nazi (all topics to come in the future...hold onto your seats!).

In all fairness, the truth that I am a nerd is not a recent realization; my husband reminds of this fact nearly daily, but it does come to my attention more often at times like these. Usually, when we're talking about my nerdiness, it is in reference to my academic record, my use of "big words", or the fact that a book can hold my attention better than most people. As it relates to my topic today, I realized I am also a nerd in the sense that I am in love with interested in a lot of things that others are not. I was pretty sure that this was one aspect of being a nerd, so I looked up "nerd" in Miriam Webster's dictionary. I was less than pleased with the results:

an unstylish, unattractive, or socially inept person; especially : one slavishly devoted to intellectual or academic pursuits.

I am okay with the second half of that, although slavishly is probably pushing it; the first half, though, is downright rude and I certainly hope, NOT descriptive of me. Thankfully, THIS socially adept person is aware of a little invention called urbandictionary.com, and I will from this point forever use its definitions of nerd:

1. One whose IQ exceeds his weight
2. Never. Ending. Radical. Dude.
3. Someone who enjoys learning and obtaining new information in general for its own sake, often without discrimination to different areas of knowledge. The key to recognizing a nerd is if they are completely indifferent to the application of what they learn; they are not inherently inclined to use or not to use the information.
NOTE: Someone who is a nerd could also be a geek, who is passionate about highly specific interests, or a dork, who is a social outcast, but they do not have to be!!!

::: Yes, I do realize that the fact that I not only researched two dictionary definitions, but actually included them in this post is further proof of my nerdiness. The irony is not lost on me. :::

Irony and silly definitions aside, I really do identify with that third definition from urbandictionary...knowledge for knowledge's sake. . I really do LOVE to learn. It doesn't really matter what it's about; I just know I'm always going to be one of those people that enjoys learning new things. I enjoy reading about new things, discussing new things, listening to others talk about new things, and...yes, I will say it: I actually kind of enjoy research and studying. There is something so refreshing and inspiring about learning about something about which you previously knew nothing. And the coolest thing I've discovered is that learning doesn't have to be in an academic setting. I love the academic setting; that's where I've learned much of what I know. But for many of you, the mere thought of school is enough to send you running for the hills. For example, my dear husband, who claims to not like to read (crazy, I know), does not enjoy school/academics/typical nerd things. Make no mistake, he is VERY intelligent and bright; he just did not like school. But he knows so much! Much of his learning has come from outside an academic setting. He learns by doing. This is amazing to me, and something that has really inspired me to open my mind to new ways of learning. I was always a book learner...and that is still my automatic default. Yet, there are so many things that are better learned experientially. 

Let me offer an example. If we have something in our house that breaks, and in the very rare case that my husband does not already know how to fix it, he will NOT look up the manual for how to fix it. Not until that is the absolute last resort. No, Joel must figure it out. He takes the broken item, turns it over, pokes here and there, tries this and that, and 9 times out of 10, he fixes it pretty quickly. Usually, he not only fixes it, but improves the quality with some personal alteration that he adds. As for me, the nerd, I am the one usually hovering over him saying, "Hey, why don't we get the manual?"
Joel: "It's okay, I've got it."
Me: "What if you break it more?"
Joel: "I won't."
Me: "You sure?"
Joel: "Yep."
Me: "I'll get the manual."
At which point I retreat to the bedroom and spend an hour flipping through the thing trying to find out what to do in this scenario. By the time I've found it, the thing's been fixed+improved  à la Joel, and the truth is, an hour later, I won't be able to tell you how to fix it, despite my in depth manual research. On the flip side, because Joel has figured it out on his own and fixed it, he'll ALWAYS know what to do if it ever breaks again. Or if he ever encounters a remotely similar situation. 

I have been trying to add experiential learning as a solution to my thirst for knowledge. The truth is, the older I get, the harder it becomes to remember some of the book knowledge I acquired many years ago. But the things I teach myself by doing...well, so far, they've stayed forever. I'm glad my husband has really highlighted this for me. There is so much to be said for experiential learning, and I can't wait to incorporate this with my own kids one day.

While that is very true, I will also never stop wanting to read and learn through the written word. I could probably write 354 posts on why I love to read and still never cover it all, but in the interest of staying on this particular topic, I will only say that reading allows you to learn about anything you want. Truly. There is a book out there on every topic, and if not a book, then a journal article; if not an article, there's always the world wide web, wikipedia, and blogs. We literally have access to learning about anything we want, and it amazes me how often I forget to take advantage of this. These days, you don't even have to look for it....just scroll through your facebook newsfeed and click on the first three linked articles your nerd friends put in their statuses, and you'll learn three new things every day. It's AMAZING! We are so blessed.

Maybe a lot of you are reading this now and thinking, I just don't care about learning. If that's you, I'm not judging you. I don't think everyone should be like me and take online Spanish for the fun of it, or voluntarily watch a video on how to properly chop garlic, or take a summer class during college "just because" (all true). I don't think everyone needs to be interested in knowledge for the sake of knowledge. But I would challenge you with this: while you may not be interested in learning about everything, I know you're interested in learning about something. So do yourself a favor...think of something you've always wanted to know about, or know how to do...and take a little time to learn about it. It probably won't take long. Read an article, watch a video, or, for the more adventurous and less busy among us, enroll in a class. Yeah, yeah, that's a nerdy thing to do. But at the end of the day, you'll be glad you did it. You may even like being able to identify with nerds like me. We're really not so bad :)

Until next time,
Chels