10 things in life worth knowing

Monday, 24 June 2013

The importance of knowledge.

Floppybobble Lane, just off Spludgington Avenue.

A few years ago, I once read a magazine article which discussed the importance of knowledge. It argued that some knowledge is more important than others obviously, for example, the knowledge of how to stay healthy and prevent diseases is more important than the knowledge of what happened in Coronation Street last night. However, the article highlighted that even some trivial knowledge can sometimes prove useful.

The claims of this magazine article were on my mind one day as I was walking to my mate's house, and so as I was walking along I decided to look out for the street signs I passed and made a mental note of the street names, thus increasing my knowledge of the local area.

As it then turned out, by a bizarre coincidence within a few minutes of doing this, someone in a car pulled up alongside me and asked if I knew how to get to Floppybobble Lane. Even more bizarrely, it turned out that Floppybobble Lane* was one of the streets I had just memorised! I was therefore able to say to the driver, "Yes, you turn left at Snifflepimple Gardens, then it's the second right off Spludgington Avenue."

Binary code: Number 10 on my list of
'10 Things In Life Worth Knowing'.

* Please note, Floppybobble Lane wasn't the actual name of the street he was looking for. This happened a few years ago so I can't remember the name of the actual street and I have therefore substituted fictitious street names for the purposes of the story.

I would say on average I only get asked for directions about once a year (if that), so the timing was quite a bizarre coincidence, but it definitely helped convince me that maybe the magazine article was right and that even some seemingly insignificant knowledge can sometimes prove useful.

So on that theme I thought I would take inspiration from the magazine article once again and compile a list inspired by the claim that all knowledge is useful. I’ve called the list ‘10 things in life worth knowing’.