Philomath

Perhaps it's my being an introvert. Maybe it's because I'm the youngest of six. Or perhaps it's because I spent my childhood in semi-isolation. Whatever it is, I've always had the need to know. To learn what makes things work, or what a word means, or how this or that is done. Or what process goes behind a product, or why someone has this set of opinions. I've always, ALWAYS enjoyed learning. If I don't get my answers from asking (and boy, did I irritate a lot of people because of the asking!), reading a book, watching workers doing their thing, I take things apart. I've been known to take things apart and not put them back right.

Anyway, that love of learning goes hand in hand with my passion for communicating and connecting. I feel someone's always got a story to tell, something I don't know yet. Now, this sounds all ideal and amazing, but it's not. Some people want to keep their opinions and thoughts to themselves. Some people want to protect trade secrets, or recipes, or formulas. Some people will engage with you to pull you into their own thinking. And the scariest of all- some people entice you into their ideologies for their personal gains. Why do I know? Because I've learned, for better or worse, that the best teacher is experience. I've been shut out, kept in the dark, twirled around, and made a pawn. Once or twice and over again.

Knowledge, learning, and wisdom are like Pokemon evolutions. They build and add on more profound meanings. To change or evolve means there's an action applied to it. You go and train and battle it out. Have you seen a Pokemon battle? They're intense. They fall, get hurt, get soaked, put through flames, frozen in ice, or blasted by force. Then they learn how to avoid getting hurt and use whatever attacks were proven effective. I approach learning the same way. That's me; I'm a Pokemon. A rare one!

Notice I didn't focus on wisdom. According to several dictionaries, wisdom is "knowledge of what is true and right,"; "of making sensible judgments." I'm not there yet. I make sound judgments with a lot of luck and supernatural guidance. It's not something that comes naturally just yet. And I, for one, love the process of making assumptions, failing, retrying, and redefining success when it doesn't line up with the grand plan.

It's manthanein, not soph.