All good friend. I wouldn’t call myself an intellectual, though… I’m just a person with specific interests like everyone else. Separating people by, essentially, educational attainment… is a mistake. I barely learned shit in college, I just got a piece of paper saying I was good at what I was already good at so I could get a job (which I haven’t yet, and it’s been a solid while becaue corporate bs is bs and heaven forbid you have gaps! but I can tell people what my degree is for and that’s enough for conversation).

My life has been a series of traumatic events that forcibly removed most of my blinders, and I see things as clearly as anyone really can, washed with propaganda as we all are… and it’s fucking miserable enough to wish I was entirely ignorant. So much easier.

But the rock has been the scientific method, it’s an amazing thing that gives us the tools to share things confidently! And I love telling people about the most recent thing I learned that was based on it. It is so helpful to say “hey what about this cool thing!” And when they go “hmm idk” you can describe the study and results, like being a living scicomm book, and then show them the actual study.