I'm tired, so tired. Every time someone says something I disagree with, I get snappy. Partly because I'm too tired to think rationally about my arguments. Today at lunch we had a discussion about Dawkins "the god delusion" and "is there any proof of god". I tried to point them just in the direction of Marco's blog and Dr Clams' blog directly, but no-one seemed that interested in actually reading something someone else had written that I found interesting and relevant. They just wanted my opinion...and I'm tired, cranky and not able to string two thoughts together.
I also get cranky when my argument for not reading something (which is as follows) "I've read for and against reviews that indicate I won't enjoy it and I have limited time and very limited energy for things I know I won't enjoy, so i choose not to read them" is answered by "you can't make a judgement without reading the book".
Yes actually, I can. And its something we all do every day when making choices about what we believe or decisions we are going to make. In an information age, it is not possible to examine every piece of information about every factor in our lives before making choices. Our time is not infinite. Even in science we usually start with reviews to get a big picture before deciding on how much detail to examine. And as Marco said "I'm not Dawkins target audience"
Ooh, that vent felt gooood.
6 comments:
Jenny needs some honey and orange nut clusters - *here*.
I won't get into the religion debate, but on the whole 'not knowing if you'll like something till you've actually read it', I'd put a yes and no. From a description or review, I can usually tell whether something is 'my type' of story. Of course, there may be a chance that it will surprise me if I read it. But yeah, why read something if there's other things you'd prefer to read and you have limited time?
Like when someone turns up with one of those partially-plastic cakes from Michelle's Patisserie, my philosophy is that life's too short to eat bad cake.
Thanks for the plug,Jenny!
Enjoy your honey and orange nut cluster..mmmm
thanks. The honey and orange nut clusters soothed me considerably. As did the pathology person this morning (who was taking my blood) when she said, "tired with a sore throat for three months? I had that, three months of test including x-rays came up with nothing, then one day i woke up feeling fine."
I choose to focus on the 'woke up one day feeling fine' part.
That's funny - My initial refusal to read it was in itself taken as a religious God-fearing stance. I was having none of that, so I eventually decided to read it - well, I haven't finished it yet....
because your time isn't infinite, or you just aren't finding the book inspiring/interesting/of value?
Since I was mainly reading it to get "permission" to criticize it, there is diminishing returns in reading remaining chapters, as I had already got to the bits I wanted to counter. The remainder of the book was increasingly unlikely to counter or address any of my criticisms.
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