I like to think I’m pretty good at facing reality. I’m also pretty aware that I’m a smart-ass. That is, I will point out flaws in something you said or wrote, or will jump in with a piece of information nobody cares about and I probably just read in a newspaper article this morning.

But I can’t help it. I love learning new things, especially if they are bizarre and virtually worthless things to know. I apologize if I’ve subjected you to this phenomenon, but what’s the fun in knowing something odd if you can’t share it?

That’s why “The Know-It-All” is one of the greatest books I’ve ever read, and the cause for a now unpayable debt of gratitude to the friend who recommended it to me.

It’s by a guy who works as an editor for Esquire, who decided to read the Encyclopaedia Britannica from A to Z because he thinks he’s smart but knows there are a lot of subjects he knows nothing about.

He writes about his experience, how physically hard it is, how it’s affecting his life both positively and negatively, and how his worldview changes throughout the reading. It’s broken down by letter of the alphabet with a selection of topics from the encyclopedia that are particularly relevant to his life, or just altogether fascinating.

It makes me want to embark on a similar quest, though his repeated “why on Earth am I doing this?!” sentiments tell me otherwise. The four or five things per chapter that I find really interesting are only a smattering of what I would pull out of the entire collection. What else did he have to cut from his book? What did he find boring that I would love?

Bottom line: If you’re a nerd, or want to be a nerd, or want another reason to think I’m strange (in an awesome way of course!), get a copy of this book.

I’m definitely not going to read the encyclopedia (at least not yet…), but this book did make me feel a growing sense of incompleteness with life. This guy has a full time job he loves, and yet devoted a year of his leisure time to a project of self-improvement. I have a less-than-full-time job that I hate, and spend my leisure time watching movies, almost finishing crossword puzzles, and watching videos online of things like a snake eating a hippo.

So it’s change time. I’m quitting in two weeks. I’m going to the beach for a week. After that, I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing in any sense of anything. And for the first time in a year of being in that state of not-knowing, I feel great about the possibility of a wide-open canvas.

“You get your Ph.D., how happy you will be, when you get a job at Wendy’s and are honored with employee of the month…” ~Barenaked Ladies