dumb and dumber

so, i'm feeling pretty stupid tonight. fact is, i'm not the sharpest crayon in the box. and i know that. but it sometimes hits me harder than other times.

i think what upsets me more than anything is that even if one isn't endowed with a superior amount of grey matter, you can at least develop what you do have. and heaven knows, i haven't. i haven't even tried.

i've been lazy. almost all my life. and i'm rather ashamed of that. i think part of the problem is that when i was very young, things came fairly easy to me. then about the time i began to be challenged, i ceased to care very much. and i only consciously learned what i absolutely had to. i even ceased to be curious about much of anything.

and now, i'm indeed sorry for that. for wasting so much time in my life. and now, my extreme ignorance, leaves me quite unclear even where to start to not waste the rest of the time i have left.

it's not that i don't want to have fun and goof off anymore. i do. but i just think now that when you close your mind, as i have, you close your opportunities for such things as fun, as well. and that maybe i'd be less bored and have more fun if i knew more stuff.

am i making any sense?

what's got me thinking about this? well, it started on friday when i went to see a movie and there was a literary reference in it, that i vaguely knew. and that's good. but what occurred to me was that there were people in this world that could actually from memory quote such things. i can't from my own head, quote much of anything. so even while i recognized the quote, i started thinking that i knew little about the background of the quote or the poem from which it was pulled from.

and it just seems to me that i should become more educated. and part of what makes me think that is then on Saturday, someone paid me a compliment and told me "you know, that was quick thinking. you're really smart. i would have never of thought of that."

and well, thanks. for the compliment. but truth is- even if i have a tiny bit of innate ability, which is tiny indeed, i haven't done much with it. i just don't know much of anything. I've never taken the time or effort to learn much of anything.

and that's not very smart.

but where do i start? there's so very much to learn. where do i begin?