Advice.

I have some advice. Some advice that you won't take. You won't take it for a variety of reasons, but I think primarily because no-one takes advice. And certainly not at the age that this advice is aimed at. I should also note that probably 100% who read this advice won't even be in a position to take it.

But, just in case, here it is:

Do not go to university unless you want to learn.

That sounds like a strange thing to say, because surely going to university is the ultimate testament in desiring learning. But it's not. Not these days. And I can tell you that because of the experience I went through.

I love learning. But I didn't go to university to learn. I went to university to get a degree. I had to learn things along the way to get that degree, but they were arbitrary. I don't think I'm alone in saying that. In fact I know I'm not. There were always lots of people in my classes who weren't there to learn, and a lot who were, were just learning to pass the degree.

Don't misunderstand me. I'm ashamed of it now. I have a thirst for knowledge now.

And I hate the anti-intellectual world we live in, where the length of time that Kerry Katona can submerge her head in a bucket of live cockroaches passes for Saturday night entertainment.

(NOTE: this feels like a good time to say that I currently despise almost all television. I hate the throwaway nothingness of it. I hate the way that you can sit down and watch a night's worth of television and learn nothing. I watched half and hour of some program about a rich couple buying a house in rural Somerset. They walked round. They quite liked some of the houses. And they had some reservations. And that was it. You learned fuck all. People buy houses and they have to compromise. Great.)

But anyway. If you go to university, get the most out of it. And you'll get the most out of it by making yourself smarter. It's something that I never really understood. Becoming smarter at university just seemed like it would be a natural progression.

I did learn things, I had some good tutors, but I could and should have learned a lot more. I despair at the time that I could have spent reading but I spent playing Call of Duty.

Reading is the way forward, by the way. Just in case you were wondering. Stop watching television and start reading. And don't read fucking ghost-written celebrity autobiographies because they are shit. And I'm not even trying to be a pretentious arrogant dickhead. They might be entertaining, I know they are, just like TV is entertaining. But TV is only entertaining in the moment. You can sit there are watch it and it's easy. But it's stupid.

People complain about some people watching too much football, but than those people are quite happy to sit down and watch hours upon hours of witless American "comedy" and facile scripted-reality.

People wonder why their government is failing and why they can't get a good job. Well it's because we've had generation upon generation now who have shunned intelligence in preference to dumbed down entertainments and pass-times.

Why is it such a pathetic punch-line for me to prefer staying in and playing chess than it is go out and get drunk until I throw up? Why does that make me boring? I can't think of anything more boring than going out.





Well. That turned into a rant and enough.


I think the moral of the story is when I start talking, ignore me.