Know

As clear as I can recall, I have never been ignorant of the fact that the world is spherical. From this end I distinctly remember the first time someone that I knew ventured any great distance from the particular place on the sphere I called home. I was young, but aware enough to know that tarantulas lived in warm climates. That my grandparents were traveling to California and there would be tarantulas there confused me, as I believed California to be far north along the border with Canada. As it turns out Montana borders Canada and California stretches along the Pacific coast. 

With the tarantula issue resolved, I was left with the gravity issue. Scientifically speaking, I knew that gravity pulled people towards the center of the Earth in a relatively uniform manner, regardless of where they stood on the great sphere. I knew this because I had read it in books and knew nothing to the contrary. However there was a part of my mind that couldn't accept this fact and I had fantastic ideas about how it would feel to walk upon another part of the Earth. For years this scientific knowledge went unchallenged and my fantasies went unrealized. Basically, I was left with a big "what if." 

Some time later I found myself traveling across the continent, through some choice of my own. As I progressed forward and the distance between myself and the old spot on the sphere increased I was keenly aware of the gravity issue. In due time I had ventured up near the Arctic Circle and well below the Equator. I had traveled from Bangkok through Malta and all the while paying close attention to how if felt to walk upon these new parts of the globe. Through my experiences I was able to determine that the text books were right and so far as I had observed gravity did in fact pull quite uniformly. I have yet to walk below the Antarctic Circle and cannot comment as to the pull of the Earth from that region as of yet, but some day I will. 

I greatly enjoy reading and have no qualms in accepting the knowledge I gain from books. However, to me, it has always made things more real when I can put my hands upon them. In my mind I knew there were deserts and I had known that the sun could set over the ocean because I read of these things and had never seen any proof to the contrary. However, my hands did not know the feel of desolate sand dunes and my eyes had never seen the sun sink below the Pacific. For me, knowing is more than a mental state, it is a physical sensation, a wholly unremovable imprint upon the senses of an undeniable reality.

I've read many books and and trekked as many miles to know what I've read. For me it is through direct experience that I'd like to know the world.