Why School is Largely Overrated yet Quintessential For Life Itself

You. Right now.

Would I have known what the word "quintessential" meant without school? Yes, because I have access to the Internet at my disposal. Did I have to use spell-check to confirm that I used the word correctly and then head over to dictionary.com to verify that I used it correctly? I refuse to answer that. Now that the omnipresent Internet has graced us with its unrelenting control, we have access to things that the four walls of a classroom could never teach us. However, we are still expected to go through about 20 years of school before we are deemed prepared to contribute to society even on a limited basis.


Edit: No, I have absolutely no clue what the word quintessential means or if I'm using it in the proper context. I'm now abandoning this article's initial purpose as I've stumbled into a black hole of irony. Here's why:

For the past 15 minutes, I've done more research trying to figure out what quintessential means and whether or not I'm using it correctly. 10 minutes prior to that, I was trying to figure out how I know that word and what a really cool way to use it would be. I figured I read it on-line somewhere and thought it would be interesting to try and prove that the Internet is a better source of knowledge than school. I then thought I would write an article that showcased that.

So here I am, 25 minutes later, and I've written absolutely nothing relevant to the post title and now I'm just confused. Somehow, this is panning out to be the most ironic article I have ever written as I feel so uneducated about the very topic that I was about to write about simply because I decided to put a big word in the title. I had big plans to write about why the Internet makes everything easier and how we learn more from Google than any class in school ever could. The sheer irony and hilariousness of what is happening is truly awe-inspiring.

This is kind of like one of those moments where you see a homeless guy on the street trying to juggle a disintegrating bag of what you hope are just oranges while singing a song he wrote to the tune of Yankee-Doodle and you just shake your head and think "should have stayed in school". Incidentally, that expression means absolutely nothing because for all you know that's exactly what he went to school for or he is currently enrolled as a professor somewhere. The point I'm trying to make is that the Internet does not provide all the answers and there really are some things that can only be taught within the confines of school. Case in point: When to avoid using big words in blog posts you had thought of writing on a whim. Let's see the Internet help with that!

I'm going to go back to writing about fear. It's a lot easier to pretend like I know what I'm talking about with that...yikes. Also, I just noticed that by reading this on the Internet it just became meta. Ironic and meta at the same time? My brain can't handle this.

This is a perfect time for that slow clap gif  that I mentioned on the Welcome page or something equally sarcastic to applaud my efforts.