A to Z: Everything's Quilted

Everything.  That's what I've always wanted to know.  Ever since I was a kid, I've dreamed of knowing everything.  How many licks does it really take to get to the middle of a Tootsie Roll lollipop?  I used to stay up late wondering about that stupid owl in the commercial, wondering if he was right.

I went to school because I want to know. I watch people because I want to know. I travel because I want to know. I am a voracious reader because I want to know. I surf the web because I want to know. I became a school psychologist because I want to know. There's an entire world out there filled with stuff that I don't know, and I'm in a bit of a rush.

What do I want to know?  Everything.  No detail is too little or too big.  All those lame trivia questions that pop up in life?  I love them.  If there's something that I find that I don't know, I must at least give it a cursory investigation.  Because it might be important at some point.  You never know when someone will ask a question!

I'm a packrat of miscellany.  I'm a hoarder of random bits of data; my brain is sometimes one of those ratty storage sheds that you hear about on the news, where they find treasures and various oddities. Little patterns make up the bigger patterns, my brain tells me. It's all connected.  My brain is convinced that those little bits of data must fit together somehow like a big quilt that covers everything. Like that toilet paper.  Once I finish that quilt, I will know everything.

Except that's not how it works, is it? The world is ever changing, after all, and even if you see a pattern one moment, all you have to do is blink and it is gone.
Even if I did manage to learn everything, I'm not going to be famous for it, unless I get really good with that buzzer on Jeopardy!.  I won't have photographers stalking my every move, throwing random questions at me.  Smart people don't get all that attention, just the pretty ones.  

Knowledge isn't wisdom, after all.  Knowledge can lead to wisdom, and maybe that's what I'm aiming for.  Somewhere in all the clutter that lives in my brain, there may be that single spark that coalesces into the wisdom of the ages. 


Maybe some day.