I don't know a lot. I know that because I keep learning things that I didn't know before. I've said it before but it's worth saying again, that we take in more information, impressions, experiences and knowledge (f it sticks) in one or two days than people used to in a month or a year, depending which century your year is in. It's all hard to process and assimilate along with everything else we're doing.
Case in point: this week (any week). I saw Twelfth Night yesterday, by the National Theatre (of Great Britain) in a live performance showing at Cineplex big screens. Wonderful production with some revelations, notably the role of Malvolio played as Malvolia - and very movingly. Tamsin Grieg was genuinely funny in her yellow stockings and cross-gaitered, with (slapstick schtick) swirling (battery-powered) tassels on her breasts - overdone but fun. But the tormenting of Malvolio has always been one of my un-favourite scenes in Shakespeare's plays. Perhaps he was dealing with a different psychology more common in his century, with mean, nasty, vicious bullying. (Comments invited.) Malvolio had every right to threaten them all with revenge - every last pack of them.
I just finished a new book by a friend - Richard Teleky, I read The Blue Hour in a first draft several years ago, and I've lived with the writer's reports of reactions, corrections, irritations (always - with every writer) and resignation. All worth it, I guess; I enjoyed it and I liked the protagonist. The novel is a kind of a mystery with a philosophical difference: the narrator is a university professor and he is re-reading Aristotle and mulling over the mediations on friendship, relevant to what is going on in his life. And he drinks Scotch. Very likeable.
Both these offerings, the play production and the novel, are gender fluid and we're better off for it as they enlarge our understanding. I am so grateful to have my understanding enlarged!
Oh, there's more, there's always more but I have miles to go before I sleep. No. I must sleep a little before I go miles.