thursday, october 10, 1:36 cdt
or, why am i not sleeping?
i think that real research
would mean more than just finding raw information
or even *reading* said information
which, admit it or not
is something many are loathe to do
in the age of the instant million-hit search engine result
i think real research
first off involves digging for things
the google web search
the usenet archive
the wikipedia article
the cavernous depths of the library stacks,
bookstore shelves and piles of old newspapers,
the minds of people who ought to know
(that last sometimes more important
than all the rest combined)
subjecting it all
to every ounce of real knowledge you can extract from your life
and then
here's the hard part
figuring out what you've found
how true it is and what it means
where the connections are
and how it all hangs together
not just with itself
but with everything else you believe
(i don't fear contradiction.
like the man said
i contain multitudes.
i do fear isolated knowledge
a kind of sickly fragmented thinking
that pretends to cope with the world piecemeal
pretends that it's not all connected
when i know it is)