Last year, a girl in my school asked me why I liked physics, and I couldn't tell her a reason other than 'I just do' or 'I find it really interesting'. Like sure, those are true, but I find many things interesting so it hardly explains this drive that seems to only be getting stronger as I learn more and more about it.
A year was a while ago, but I guess my subconscious may have been wondering about it ever since then, because a few days ago I realised the answer. I'm using physics to try and work out the world. It's like every new thing I learn adds a new piece to the puzzle that I never thought existed, and it broadens my view of the world in ways I didn't know were possible. It's about knowing exactly where you are in the world, and how everything around you works at the most fundamental level. Like, I now know now the basics of how car gears work, which cleared up a lot of worries about me destroying the car if I do this or that while changing gears. But when I talk about broadening my view of the world, I don't mean just basic things like knowing how things work, although that's useful enough. When I learn a bit of relativity it was extremely hard to understand. Not the maths, the maths was easy, but the meaning of the things the maths was saying. How is it possible for the time to be different depending on how fast something is going compared to the speed of light? Or that the length of something contracts as it goes faster (measuring in the reference frame that is at rest)? Like, it quite literally gets shorter. At least according to the theory (which is well proven). I'm still not sure if I believe it. The thing that I'm currently (since 2010) fascinated by quantum physics. It's probably because I don't understand it in the slightest. Quantum physics is complex and confusing, and I'm yet to formally study it. Physics goes weird when it goes quantum, and it's going to be really interesting to see how what I learn about quantum physics will fit in with how I view the world at the moment.
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So, apparently I think too much. At least according to this personality questionnaire that I did as part of a leadership workshop at uni. It's supposed to be a 3D assessment which gives a better picture than most quizzes that are a 2D assessment, or at least that's what they said.
According to this workshop, to be a good leader you have to understand yourself first, hence the quiz. My results told me that my main motivation in life was supposed to be Wisdom, I have an extremely optimistic outlook on life, and apparently my IQ is way stronger if you compare it in ratio with the other intelligences. We spent quite a few hours learning some of the theory behind this stuff which I won't go into here, but the website is here and there is a free version of the questionnaire there although it does take a bit of effort to fill out. For the Wisdom motivation, the strengths were supposed to be being able to understand the full situation and get the best outcome for all others in the long term. This sounds awesome. Apparently overdoing it may make me 'appear too hypothetical'. I wasn't sure what it meant at first, but discussed it with the guy I was sitting next to (who happened to get the exact same results as me for this section) and we came to the conclusion that it means that we think too much. So then we thought about how to think less and realised that this was probably not going to work out... Another thing I found out, is that contrary to what people have been telling me for a while, I am actually really really optimistic. Optimism isn't about 'looking on the bright side' or anything like that, although positive thinking like that is probably quite good for your mental health. Optimism is all about the way you approach a hard situation. It's not about ignoring the bad, but accepting it and doing everything you can to change it into something that suits you better. I suppose in that regard I've had a lot of practice recently... I guess that explains the high score in that area because it's supposed to be one of those things you can improved with training. The thing that I really find strange is that the ratio of my IQ score was a lot higher than my EQ score. I always thought I was reasonably good at reading people although I have been feeling that that ability has been slowly diminishing over the years, probably ever since I decided in year 7 that I couldn't just keep being overly sensitive and reacting to everyone else's emotions. So now I'm starting to realise that I never actually solved that problem (assuming it was a 'problem' that needed solving) and to have any improvements in that area I'll probably need to start all over again. I get the feeling that I'm just thinking too much about everything. They say that ignorance is bliss and I completely agree, but somehow I just can't help thinking and learning and reaching for knowledge about things that I probably would be happier not knowing about. I can't help wondering if maybe ignorance may not be worth the temporary bliss it produces, because things keep changing and there's always something to shatter your bliss in the end, and what're you going to do if you're not prepared? Wow, this post has been all over the place. It's strange how my thoughts can feel so clear and I can see the big picture when I apply it to something external, like uni or other people, even if there are unanswered questioned and I don't completely understand it, yet when I try to puzzle out what's happening in my own life that I'm actually living I come up lost and confused in the maze of my own thoughts. It never used to happen. When I was younger I could see the 'big picture' in my life. Things were so simple then. *sigh* I suppose with external things I don't have to factor in any thoughts and wonder in depth about a variety of thoughts and feelings. I guess that makes it official |