Knowing stuff sucks, man.

I am not a political heavyweight, no matter how loud I talk. At best I'm a political light-bantamweight feathering weak left-jabs at Tory sluggers who could have me down for the count with one quote from the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

I've got my opinions and I'm not afraid to share them with you (usually quite obnoxiously, as if there is no possible alternative). But I'm wholly unprepared for a proper political argument. To be blunt, I just haven't done my homework. I read the Guardian, and scoff any time I come into contact with right-wing paper.

See, I like evidence. It's part of the reason I'm not religious. I've got plenty of information about basketball, though, so if you wanna have an argument on basketball I'm pretty confident I can beat you. But politically I just don't have the base of knowledge. It's not that I can't site my sources, it's that I don't have sources to site, most of the time.

When I was younger, I didn't know anything. But I didn't know that I didn't know anything, so it was easy to puff out my chest and lambaste whomsoever I felt was due a lambasting. These days I'm fully aware of my own ignorance, and I know how easy it would be to defeat my argument. So I often have to contain my opinions, even though they are more relevant and informed than I have ever been before.

The problem, as far as I can see, is knowing stuff.
Someone clever once said:
"The smarter you become, the sadder you become"
I think it was me.

But it's true. And it's because when you're young the world is presented to you very simply and neatly. Mummy tells you that being good is good, and you'll be rewarded, and being bad is bad and you'll be punished. The heroes always win in books and TV and films, and the evil villains not only lose, but they get their comeuppance too.
When you grow up. Everyone's a fucking villain. And they're all getting away with it.

The more you learn, you realise what a terrible place the world is, and how the sugarcoated existence you once knew is gone, and can never come back