Yes, I became impractical.
I realized that all the things that people define as "useful" or
"practical" aren't the most important things in life. I came to see real
value in learning things ( starting from ABCD to Derivates, double derivatives, Integrationm double Integration, programming languages, scripting and many more) even if you can't immediately apply that knowledge.
I began to understand the importance of intelligence, the kind that can solve
logic puzzles, even if that intelligence doesn't actually help feed people or
earn money. I realized how necessary it was to do things that wouldn't
actually help prolong your life, but might do something even more important.
In a very real way, being too practical might, ironically, end up being
impractical. The failure of pure practicality to actually be practical is,
today, illustrated vividly in computer technical support forums where people
try to help each other with their computer problems. Frequently, someone will
have some problem which elicits half a dozen different ideas that people have
for helping to solve the problem, but these responses typically run along
predictable lines like installing the latest patches and drivers,
reinstalling the troublesome application, reinstalling the operating system
(a ridiculously common "solution" which is like "fixing" a car by buying a
new one), or booting in "Safe Mode". If none of these work, people will often
come up with increasingly desperate and unlikely solutions like random
configuration and registry changes which aren't really understood. None of
these possible fixes are rooted in any true understanding; they are nothing
more than haphazard guesses. The reason this happens is because people are
trying to be "practical", i.e. they don't want to know how the software or
hardware actually works; they just want to make it work. In so doing, they
create myriad problems caused by a lack of real knowledge. If these people
understood how their computers really worked, they would be able to know what
the problem is, and how to fix it definitively, instead of wasting hours in
guesses that might or might not help. Learning about the computer might seem
like a lot of useless theory that you won't ever use, but someday when true,
profound understanding is required, it can pay off.
Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying that we shouldn't be practical as well.
You still need to use your better judgment and common sense, and if you're
going to stay alive, you need to make good decisions that will help your life
avoid common pitfalls, but getting a good education and a high-paying job
aren't the only things that can improve your quality of life. Indeed, if they
are the *only* things you have in your life, you probably won't be very
happy, no matter how much money you have.
Nor am I saying that life is pointless or that there shouldn't be any
goals. Far from it; I've simply realized that the goals that people usually
set out for themselves in life aren't the ones that matter most.
I still like technology, but I no longer think that it must be the newest,
flashiest technology to be any good. I am not particularly interested in
competing with others to have the latest technology, either. I still like the
wonder of technology, and how it can do things for people that seem
impractical, yet are so valuable to the human experience. I still like
learning how technology works, even if I can't use that knowledge in any
obvious way. Is that bad? At one point in time, I would have said yes, but it
just seems like a part of life now. Sometimes you pick up information that
doesn't seem too useful because it won't prolong your life, but it just might
enrich it.
So, yes, technology is an end in itself, just like any other part of life.
It's interesting, smart, and fun, and maybe that would be reason enough for
it even if it weren't also so useful.
