Hello,
So today I was driving back from Madison and thus I had a lot of time to think. My mind was wondering all over the place as it normally does, but seeing as I was coming from the State Academic Decathlon competition I was thinking about knowledge in general and this lead to religion (a place where my mind always seems to come back to).
Today there was a rare occurrence. It really only happens once a year in Wisconsin and for the past three years I have gone and this years was going to be no different. The Wisconsin Academic Decathlon State Tournament Super Quiz Relay was this afternoon. It really is amazing. I will try and explain it but I won't do it a hint of justice. Imagine if you will a theatre that seats close to a thousand people. The main floor seats (aka the seats the are flat on the ground) are gone except for a few rows at the back and 9 tables are set up. The teams are identified mainly by the fact that they are sitting together wearing the same shirts. The rest of the seats are filled with a few parents but mostly fans. Yes fans for a schools academic team. Large sections of people wearing shirts in support of their Academic Decathlon team, armed with large signs and even a few scattered instruments are lead by their mascots. They are extremely loud and the very enclosed space wasn't built for loud noises. The crowds are doing chants and songs and interact (negative by and large) with other schools crowds. The mascots take to fighting with one another. The place is packed and on the stage is one small podium and a large screen where the questions will be placed one at a time. The teams are sitting in reverse order of team rank, and it is easy to spot the new kids to the teams because they are for the most part extremely afraid of this whole spectacle. Soon the crowd is called to order by the director at the small podium and the whole place is introduced to the M.C. The M.C. reads off the rules and the 9th member of a 9 member team ascends the steps to the main floor and takes their seat at the designated spot. They are to answer five questions. They are only showed one at a time and are only given a few seconds to think it over mark their scantron and a separate piece of paper. The whole crowd is silent as they do this. A little bell goes off signaling the end of the time and all the students on the floor hold their pencils in the air, showing that they aren't cheating. The answer is revealed and the students who got the question right raise their hand in the air signaling to their crowd that they got it right. This sets of a shock wave of cheering that no basketball player has ever heard. It is so deafening that the newbies jump in their seats. This is repeated for all five of the 9th team members questions and then the team member leaves and all of his team have moved down a seat and he takes his place, thankful to be done. The 8th member goes down and this whole thing is repeated, and then the 7th and then the 6th etc.
Maybe it is because I was on one of those teams, maybe because I was also in sports, but I can't help but love that their is this recognition of geeks. I remember the panicked feeling of knowing your turn to answer questions in front of that huge crowd was coming up. I remember the difficulty of the questions even though you have been studying for months. I remember hearing the crowd cheer for those around you and not for you when you got one wrong, and I remember hearing them cheer when you go one right. I loved all of it and to be a spectator this time was weird. I watched my old teammates go up and answer. I thought as they got to their last question how it would be the last question in Decathlon that they will ever answer. Then I selfishly thought of my last question and how I hadn't thought about it at the time. I was simply glad to be done and watching my teammates. I wished for that last question back so I could savor all of it. It made me almost want to cry.
I realized on the way back that Decathlon wasn't just an after school activity but a way of life. Your team members became part of your family and you knew a lot about them. You were encouraged to study and were part of a group that enjoyed it so their wasn't a fear of being a geek but more of a revelation in that fact. You were expected to go to college and do well because you had the skills to far exceed the colleges standards. You were closely watched so any slip up was noticed and addressed. You spent time out of practice with your teammates and they never really got annoying. Basically everyday from September to March you went to practice after school and from March to June you didn't know what to do with yourself after school and ended up just returning to the practice room even for a few minutes so that you felt normal.
Knowledge is so loved by the teams and the fans that it really does impress me. I love it too much right along with them. There are days when I would rather study than anything just because that is the mind set I am in. This is slightly reminiscent of a pin that I picked up at the feminist book store in Madison that reads "Reading is Sexy!". There were some other pins I picked up but I left the ones attacking religion alone. Maybe this is because of the people I was with but more than likely it was because I don't like people who bash or criticize others religion.
This got me thinking about my religion which really doesn't exist. I have been asked in the past if that doesn't make the entire world seem grim. After thinking about it I think most human made things are miracles in one way or another. Think about it. Think about a light bulb, something that we use everyday. It took years to figure that out, hundreds of failed attempts, and now they are mass produced by machines that we have figured out how to make. The light bulb seems so simple to most of us and after thinking on it the idea of how long it took to conceive and get right boggles my mind. Then I thought on why this boggles me, and I have decided it is because knowledge is the ultimate gift, though life is nice too. We pass down knowledge from one generation to the next. The new generation picks it part, weeds out the wrong and no longer useful things, adds their own research, ties it up in a nice bundle and hands it off to the next generation. We have had the light bulb explained, we didn't have to conceive it. We have simply been building from there, just adding on. It is rare that a completely new idea comes around that isn't built off of something else, and that is because we have passed on knowledge and each generation has more than the one before and can do more. I love knowledge. Maybe I am just a Knowledgeist.
That was a lot of writing and I have more to say but I will save it. Thanks for reading.
Ta Ta
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