"The history of science is a
graveyard of dead and abandoned ideas…. Humans are awesome, don’t get me wrong,
but we tend to believe that what we currently think we know about the universe
is reasonably correct even though statistics aren’t on our side. Previous
generations incorrectly thought the exact same thing about what they used to
think was true.” -Michael Stevens (Vsauce)
Dear Undergrad Jeremy,
College
is going to turn your existence into a search for truth and validity. In all
aspects of your life you are going to have people teaching you theories. These
theories can range from scientific to philosophical to theological. You may
feel like you choose to believe or not believe in theories, but in reality you
are choosing to believe or not believe in people. Probably by a person who is
smarter than you and believes it because they were taught by someone smarter
than them. You can trace those theories back to a single smart person. And
there were other smart people who disagreed. One smart person’s theory may be
more popular than another, but that doesn’t necessarily offer it any greater
validity.
I’m
not saying that all truths are subjective or that you get to make it up as you
go. I’m saying that you shouldn’t waste your life trying to figure out who is
right and who is wrong. Try living your life instead of just thinking about it.
Look for a person’s value not in their intelligence, but in their happiness. And
spend your time pursuing true joy rather than transient knowledge.
Sincerely,
Post-grad Jeremy
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