In the book Flowers for Algernon (1958), Charlie Gordon is a person with mental disabilities who receives an experimental operation to make him smarter. As his intelligence grows, the people he loves begin to resent him.
Frustrated by this, Charlie asks, “But what’s wrong with a person wanting to be more intelligent, to acquire knowledge, and understand himself and the world?”
Charlie gets his knowledge from books. He fills himself with facts, complicated economic analysis, mathematical equations, political strategy, and more. And yet, he can’t understand people. Emotionally, he’s still a six-year-old boy trapped inside a man’s body.
How does Charlie’s situation apply to knowledge acquisition today? Do people resent intelligence and do books teach you everything?
Until tomorrow, read slowly – take notes – apply the ideas.
-Eddy
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