Factoids, Brains, Deities and Blogging

I guess you could say that I'm writing this blog because I actually have nothing to say.  I've discovered that if I do have something to say I can often turn it into an article, and once I've done that there really isn't anything  left for me to say.  Conversely, the more articles I write, the more inspired I am, and the more ideas I get for additional articles, but it sure doesn't help with the blogging.

I could talk about my personal experiences, but I'll be honest and say I don't have much of a life these days, and if something actually happens it's usually not something I want to share.  Often what happens to me is so boring I can't imagine anyone else being the least bit interested in it, because even I'm not.  My life is not a party.  I'm not particularly social - okay I'm not the least bit social, except in an internet sort of way.  I stay at my end of the information superhighway, and my friends stay at theirs.

Even people I have known for many years, in person, I don't actually talk to anywhere but on the computer.  They all have much more interesting lives than mine, I'm sure, although I wouldn't want to trade places with them.  The last thing I want is what other people consider to be an interesting life.  Interesting implies dramatic tension of some sort.  Interesting implies a lot of things that aren't particularly interesting to me.  Go figure.

I know people don't really want to read about the ten-millionth cute thing one of my ferrets has done that day.  It's a subject I love the expound upon, but I know people have their limits.  I don't blame them.  I don't want to hear how adorably Fido ate his kibble that morning either.  I have less patience than most people, actually, so I'm acutely aware of the patience limits of others.  In other words, they'll put up with more from me than I ever would from them.  I'm also blunt/honest to a fault, usually, although I try not to be too mean about it, and that's not a good combination with a lack of patience.

An interesting day for me, in a good sense, is when I learn new things.  I spend a lot of time doing research on pretty much anything that pops into my head.  I learn little factoids that I think of as interesting, but I know no one else will share my enthusiasm.  At least, not anyone I know on a personal level.  Instead I can write an article about it, and people will find it if they're interested in that particular topic.

Most people don't care that a butterfly is really only a type of moth, and that there's not actually a classification for them.  People just started calling them butterflies because they were prettier than the other moths.  They don't really care that the reason you're not supposed to handle their wings is because what seems like powder to our fingers are actually tiny little scales that break away from the wings and do not grow back, so eventually they can't fly.  You're either into bugs or you're not, generally speaking.

People don't often concern themselves with facts such as there being no such thing as a weed.  Weeds are simply plants like any other.  Some are considered weeds in one area of the world, where in others they're considered to be of great use.  There is no scientific definition of a weed.

I actually find that most people don't even care that they're inadvertently causing the early demise of their own pets by giving them the crap sold at grocery stores.  Cats and ferrets are carnivores, requiring a diet of meat and fat only, with no grains or vegetables.  With ferrets the pieces of vegetables in commerical pet foods can actually lodge in their tiny intestines and kill them within hours.  With cats it takes a lot longer, but the results are just as sad.

Until something happens to create an interest in a particular topic, such as losing a beloved pet due to improperly meeting their dietary needs, or seeing a beautiful moth/butterfly and getting a sudden urge to know more about it, most people happily go through their days not wanting to hear anything about either topic.  On a personal front it makes things difficult for me socially, because I spend my time actively learning.  It's an unusual personality quirk.  I get a bug up my butt about something, and simply have to know more.

Today I did some research on Houdini, because I've read conflicting information regarding his death.  I learned he actually died of peritonitis secondary to a ruptured appendix.  It is now believed he would have died with or without the blows to his abdomen from a McGill University student.  I remember reading somewhere that he'd died during his 'buried alive' trick, but obviously that was an urban myth.  Probably somewhere along the lines of Catherine the Great dying while attempting intercourse with a horse.  Totally not true that she died that way, but that's not to say she didn't live through an attempt as she was apparently a randy little thing.  I didn't learn that today, but several years ago when I was bitten by that little bug.

I'm not sure what it is about me that I need to keep feeding my brain, where other people seem to level off in their ability to absorb information, or their interest in doing so.  Okay, most people not only level off, they tend to run away screaming as if they're bleeding from their ears.  Open-mindedness disappears in most people as they age.  They get set in their ways, I guess.  Then again, I'm certainly set in my own ways, and part of those ways are the interests I develop continuously.

I'll never understand why people lose their ability to see and marvel at the mysteries of the world.  The more I learn about it, the more amazing it all seems to me.  In fact, if anything were to encourage me to believe in an all-powerful deity, it would be that ever-growing amazement I get from learning.  That's where the theologians, religious nutbags, and anti-evolutionist are getting it wrong, as far as I'm concerned.  The less they encourage learning, the less people are going to be amazed by the world.  The less wonder they carry around with them, the less likely they are to believe in a supreme being.

Well, crap.  So much for the blog.  Now I have another article to write.