I got to have a long chat this morning with a new friend of mine about: parties, gender norms, climbing, religion majoring, science, food, etc.
It was really fun to get a fresh perspective on some topics that I've talked a lot about with the same few people.
One of the things we talked about was the how the modern way of approaching learning, which is to find answers, get the big picture, etc... really isn't all that helpful for some things, especially religious texts... Perhaps that is why it is such a repetitive field. These texts are dense, dealing with faith and the human condition... each new work is produced by revisiting these texts and finding something new, bringing individual perspectives on it. Some how bringing in the absolutist state of mind makes the subject repulsive, like the ongoing debate between science and religion. Each side clams to be right, but the whole thing is very off putting.