Pocket universes

I was exchanging emails today with a few friends and it really struck me how little I could relate to what was being said. One guy, for example, has this thing for really nice and expensive headphones at the moment. But he also rarely (if ever) buys actual CDs (blank CDRs don't count) and he says he doesn't listen to entire albums. Which only leaves pretty much the hit songs. Now, I don't have a problem as such with his approach to enjoying music, but it's times like these that I realise how far I personally am from such a line of thought. My most expensive headset cost me $30 (on sale, 50% off) and my favourite pair came free from an Adobe seminar. But I own buckets and buckets of CDs. I love albums. I have a 20GB mp3 player but I think I've only ever had the thing on shuffle once or twice. I love researching music. Finding influences. Counting Crows led me to Ryan Adams, which led me to Bob Dylan, Gram Parsons, Neil Young and a bunch of other old farts who made some absolutely fantastic records.

But I'm getting sidetracked here. The point, if there is one, is that so many people are sheltered in their own ways and yet they might not ever realise it. This group of friends, to generalise broadly, are the poster children for the disposable generation. They earn a lot (but want more), they're all highly intelligent and generally rather conservative. I personally have only met a handful of people whose high school TER (or UAI or whatever) was below 50. And 50, by definition, is the average! I have to constantly remind myself of this fact, because I honestly cannot fathom how a person can try hard in school and get below 50. Go ahead and judge me harsh if you like, but it's really very hard for me to understand something that I'm not. And maybe this is the real point I am trying to make.

I differ from this stereotype in that I really don't value money that much. I know that sounds like a wank, but it's true. Money is merely about survival and being able to fund whatever I want to do (which hopefully doesn't involve money). I've spent my whole adult life chasing career paths and interests that are totally impractical in terms of earning me a lot of money. I'm in the wrong industry right now if I wanted to be wealthy. And it's very hard for me to care. My brother has asked me to come to investment seminars and whatnot in the past and I really am not the least bit interested. Whenever somebody says to me that 'time is money', I feel like decking them.

My friends at work are totally different. Most of them aren't anywhere near as well-off as my other friends, they're much less conservative and are all convinced that everybody they know are Labor voters and thus cannot understand why the Liberals have been in power for so long. They're pretty much overgrown versions of the university art student stereotype. And I can't really understand them either.

From here, I'm gonna extrapolate (as I often do) that opinions are formed as much from a lack of understanding as they are from good understanding. And the problem is that most people are normally unaware of how little they do understand. Religion is a great example. So many atheists say they have a good understanding of religion. But they don't. And can't. Knowledge doesn't always mean understanding.

OK, now I think I just opened a much bigger can of worms. So I'll stop here. I don't know what I was trying to say or where I'm going with this. It was just something I felt like writing out of frustration.

And I just scrolled up. And that's a lot to write on something that I admit to having very little understanding about.