You Should, I Should, They Should, So Forth and So on

Growing up I was fairly interested in reading books. By fairly interested I mean that I was the three time winner of the "book race" in my elementary school. This is no small feat at a school that consisted of roughly 473 students. I won these book races by reading about things that interested me. Sports, music, popular culture, etc. Reading was, and still is a past time of mine. I do not think I am some "higher than thou" person just because I read. Considering that I'm an English major I'm sure I'm surrounded by people that read consistently and potentially more than I do. These people that surround me are most likely more intellectual than me in regards to most academic areas. However, I have gained intellecualism by a different means. Now maybe I can't get into an in-depth conversation about Shakespeare or Chomskyan linguistics, but if you want to discuss the significance of this years Final Four or about the rise of garage rock in the early part of last decade I would be more than happy to engage in conversation. The significance of this though is that the reading that I have done has brought me to a place where I want to learn about the classic works of literature and the different linguistic approaches.

Gaining intellectualism through different means is important because it can be applied to almost any person in any form of society. Granted this may seem like a no brainer, I do not know that it is. Take for instance if someone is interested in pop culture. Although this is normally a lightly thought out topic and a majority of pop culture is show and not any kind of worthy tell, a young girl could learn to form an argument on why Lady Gaga is significant to society. Now granted I can not see any strong formula for a case on these grounds, part of that girls gaining intellectualism could be a part of anaylzing and developing new ideas to create valid points. This also applies to some young boy who happens to love sports. His knowledge of statistics and facts on baseball could help him get in challenging arguments on the game. The importance of this is that, while the classic works stay available and true, they will not always be appealing to people. However, there topics of conitnual change that will interest even the most clueless of people. Getting these people to tap into those topics and discovering their significance can develop intellect.