August 23 2007
First, I should get this out of the way. I’m starting to get bored with myself. So, I can only assume that the people that read this blog from time to time are similarly getting bored. I mean, I understand it’s tough to slog through 800 + words to get to a point, when I make one. I’m working on it, believe me.
Frankly, I think the challenge with my current state of boredom is the difference between knowledge and wisdom. I have too much of the former and not enough of the latter.
I read a ton—too much, in fact. I am a voracious consumer of information—30 + magazines a month (most if not all by subscription). I mean, seriously, I don’t know a single other person in my entire universe that reads that many magazines, and especially not a neurotic nutball that feels guilt if the months pile up on Food & Wine magazine, for example. And, I spend a lot of my life online reading blogs, etc. When I’m reading a book I’m reading non-fiction and I usually get through a book a month—most are wine and/or marketing/business related. Sometimes they’re wine business books, just to make it easy for myself.
Simply put, I take in too much information that is intended to make me knowledgeable. Ideas are great, but there’s a point of diminishing return when you can’t practically do all or them, or any of them, really.
Sadly, in the last three years I’ve read just two fiction books that I can recall—Life of Pi and the Da Vinci Code. Life of Pi made me cry and feel joyful and The Da Vinci Code gave me serious pause to reflect on the dogmatism that 12 years of Catholic schooling can give you. My wife starts to steam because I still haven’t read Harry Potter despite the obvious emotional investment she has in the series—for Pete’s sake she took a day off from work to go to a recent Harry Potter book release party wearing a homemade t-shirt that says, ‘Ron is a Keeper.’ She was a mess when Dumbledore died, but I don’t know what any of this means in practical terms.
Net-net, I’m on max information overload. I’m about as plugged into the things I’m interested in as humanly possible. I’m knowledgeable. I’m mostly decent dinner conversation. There’s not a whole hell of a lot in wine, pop culture, business or Notre Dame Football that eludes my grasp.
But, this is where the double-edged sword comes into play.
While I feel like I’m pretty knowledgeable, what I’m missing is wisdom—the wisdom that can be gained from reading fiction—the empathy you feel for well-drawn characters in a story that has a beginning, a middle and an end with a moral.
So, this post would normally be about wine customization labels and the obvious market that is being missed. I got inspiration for the post from an ad in Rolling Stone magazine (yes, by subscription) for Converse shoes whereby Generation Y can customize their sneakers. There’s lot of this customization stuff going on—in fact there’s probably some marketing case studies, too, if I searched for them (I’m not). Heck, http://www.threadless.com and http://www.spreadshirt.com have businesses built on customized t-shirts. Common sense tells me that if one of these custom-label wine companies created an easy to use, highly flexible and customizable online label-maker and offered and marketed the ability for younger consumers to create their own cool labels then you’d really have a pretty cool business going.
But, like I said, I’m getting bored with myself and ideas are great to a point, but sometimes action is more interesting. Or, absent action at least having the wisdom to know the good ideas from the bad is pretty cool, too.
I think I’m off to read a good book, but before I get to the fiction I’m reading Henry Miller’s Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch—it’s a non-fiction, supposed to be kind of like a first person blog before there were blogs. It’s supposed to be packed with wisdom, too. Maybe it will give me some ideas.
Posted in, Free Run: Field Notes From a Wine Life. Permalink | Comments (9) |
Good post! I can relate, on a few differnt levels. To “ease” your way into fiction, I recommend ‘Atlas Shrugged’ by Ayn Rand; it’s part fiction, part knowledge, you could say. . . .
In any case, keep up the good work!
Alright, Jeff. Enough of this nonsnense. You need Kerouac. That’s right Jack. One can never read too much. One can only read the wrong shit and then it can all go bad. And when that happens the only way back is On The Road.
Take this novel and read it today. If you have already read it, give it another go.
Your wisdome is waiting. Reclaim it.
Galen
I agree with el Jefe. Go pick up Lamb by Christopher Moore. It’s one of my favorite books and it will make you laugh and sort of appreciate your Catholic upbringing - and make fun of it. You can possibly even gain a smidgen of wisdom from the book.
Oh - the book’s full name? Lamb: The Gospel According to Bigg, Christ’s Childhood Pal.
Cheers!
er, it’s Biff - but yes!
Right. Typing too fast for my own good. Biff.
Also, Jeff, I was in Edinburgh, IN, this weekend shopping my heart out at the outlet malls. Not too far away, and not too far from you, is Simmons Winery. They really make a big deal about their personalized labels: http://www.simmonswinery.com/ourwines.html.
Great post. Most people don’t even consider the difference between knowledge and wisdom, so consider yourself ahead of the crowd right there.
My recommendation for a read? Grapes of Wrath. I’m pulled back to it again and again—usually about once every other year—and am continually awed by the story, the characters, and the spare brilliance with which Steinbeck writes.
Thanks for all the comments, guys! I’ll check out the Lamb book, and, honestly, I missed Grapes of Wrath in school because I took a funky Western Civ. lit. class and was thus forced to read the Illiad by Homer, but I’ll put it in the reading queue.
Michelle, thanks for the note on Simmons. I do have it on the radar to get a good ole Indiana wine for the next WBW so maybe it will be from Simmons—and, it should be noted, I served their Cherry wine at my wedding as the white zin equivalent for non red or white drinkers. This is the Midwest afterall.
My best to each of you.
Jeff
Did you know Simmons has a spot in the outlet mall? That’s a brilliant marketing move on their part. I picked up their Chardonel for WBW.
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Customized labels can run afoul of TTB(ATF) regulation. Yes, a custom private label must still meet the rules. There are ways to do it but they limit your creativity. Once again, business opportunities enjoyed by most businesses are denied to the wine producers…
I recommend anything by Christopher Moore - especially “Lamb”. If DaVinci Code rocked your world, you ain’t read nothing yet…