Thursday, August 21, 2008

Better to understand a little...

...than to misunderstand a lot.

When I was dining out alone some two months back, I overheard a conversation between two persons.

It can't be help, I already developed this nasty habit of always eager to hear what other people are talking about. To those who know me, I am an extremely quiet and introvert person, the one who rarely strikes a conversation unless I feel I really have to.

These two young boys were talking about their future. One of them claimed to have been accepted into University of Malaya, one of our premier University. According to him, he was on way to enroll into Bio-Technology course, which I think comes under the Faculty of Biology.

I felt quite excited, after all, this young boy was going to study Science in UM. Quite an achievement. I listened carefully to what he was going to say next. He must have achieved a considerable good result in order to be accepted into the elite University.

But a moment later, my excitement was fast turning out to be an utter disappointment.

His friend asked him, what Bio-Technology would be like.

He gave this answer.

“Something to do with moving objects without requiring any technological machine, only by using biological advancement”

What the hell?

I know one such course (if there exist any) which can move objects without any technological assistance. That is called Black Magic course...no machine or technological assistance, only Bomoh's assistance.

I am no scientist. But as far as I'm concern, Bio-Technology deals mainly with genetic.

He understood the question, no doubt. But he tried to provide answer even though he was clueless. Because nowadays person with answer is seen as smarter, whereas person with a lot of questions tend to be viewed as dumber.

But it is not necessarily true.

I remember a quote I collected on the internet (which I saved in my hard-drive) a few years back.

"It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers." - James Thurber

We are living in a world which people prefer quick answers...without even knowing the real questions. In other words, we still do not know the real problems, but we are swiftly looking for the solutions. We don't want to be called stupid.

As happened to me during my secondary school. Teachers were clueless as what was happening to me...but they never asked me. And they never noticed or try to understand my "real" problems...yet they constantly looking for answers.

How could they solved my problems without knowing my real problems? Weird.

We should pause and think for a while...as Albert Einstein put it "The important thing is not to stop questioning"

For me, the one who asked the question to his friend should get an A for his curiosity...but the Bio-Technology-to-be guy should get an F for his ignorance (or should I say for his stupidity to look clever?)