My absurd quest for knowledge

It have been almost 10 years since I finish my Bachelor Degree in engineering. There are many things that I learned and I do not remember. One of my excuses for not knowing things that I am supposed to know, is that my education happened long time ago and my brain repurpose that unused memory space for more relevant stuff. I have to admit, that is a very optimistic point of view.

Another excuse I have, is that I found that the classes I do not recall were pretty boring. Imagine a professor teaching/preaching concepts to students as if they were in a catholic mass. The examples presented in class were not exciting at all, especially when those examples did not explain practical applications of the subject in question. A mechanical way to approach problems, without too much thinking in between.

Other courses were as you were being part of a country founded by corporations, in which your professor was an embassador of Cisco, Oracle or Microsoft. I recall one of them spreading the good word of Cisco Certifications as if they were more valuable than any other type of education. A considerable group of young students believed him. I paid for a full CCNA training.

Finally, sometimes there was the absence of motivation. The stimulus of the class was not grasping a concept or set of concepts to be applied in real world situations. However, getting a grade or just complete the course doing the bare minimum was desirable outcome, at least from the student point of view. I recall several of my classmates express their frustration saying: "I just want to be done with it".

In the last 2 years, I have embarked in a quest for knowledge in several disciplines from engineering to humanities. Thanks to the influx of high quality education websites (Udacity, Coursera, Khan Academy), video lectures from top universities (MIT, Caltech, GATech), documentaries, audiobooks on the public domain (LibriVox), books on the public domain , and finally all the contributions of internet users creating short tutorials or short lectures explaining complex concepts using simple words (TED Ed, Crashcourse). I do not have to be present at a particular hour, in a particular place with a particular person. I can just sit in my computer, learn... ummm... Anything? Yes! Anything.

Do you want to learn to play piano? There are millions tutorials for that.
What about playing guitar? There is a gazillion of them.
What about chemistry? Yes! Top teachers and professors share their lectures.
Computer programming?  Well, let me put it in this way, it is relatively easier to learn to talk to computers than to talk to people.
Countless examples can be presented. You get my point.

Why, you would ask? Well, I love to study and learn new things. I do not know when a piece of knowledge will be handy. Information may save your life or save you money on car insurance [was that a pun?]. A little piece of information puts you in advantage in front of the people that knows less or nothing.
I hoard knowledge. I enjoy connecting the dots between interdisciplinary concepts. Draw parallels between exhibit A and exhibit B. Learn from others, make my own conclusions, taking home what I consider good, getting rid of what I consider bad. Updating my erroneous preconceptions and misconceptions is now a part of my daily life.

Knowing makes me happy.