I’m a fan of TV quizzes. They challenge my own baggage as they teach me new facts. They are only exercises of vast information and good memory, but they mobilize the inner encyclopedia and show us that no one knows everything. And those few are full of fluid data, which create networks of associations in the mind.

It is worth considering the difference between erudition and wisdom. Today, when social media is devoted to so much nonsense, the attention of our followers becomes fragmented and wanders over countless useless things. Tabloids are very interested in young people who want to know how Messi lives in Miami or every detail of Tamara Falcó’s wedding. As the television programs are in Spanish, in addition to the geography of the Iberian Peninsula, one should be aware of this banal aspect of life.

Guayaquil also had its own competitions. Memory Who knows, knows, under the leadership of Francisco Cabanilla and the interfaculty that maintained Ecuavisa and where I took a team of students from the campus where I collaborated. My school included them in its cultural weeks. Adolescents passionately competed with specific knowledge, intensively prepared and reviewed their school programs, as well as newspapers of a certain period. A special attraction was devoting ourselves to knowledge, designing questions that we teachers could ask. Some of this was projected into my own design of my reading tests for each book, which the students tried to predict.

Those who understand human memory know that this ability is selective and operates according to the commitment of each individual. It has specific strengths and weaknesses. I have thousands of data on names, dates and historical features, but I only remember ID numbers and cell phones. There are people who are completely locked in “I don’t remember well”, which is impossible. I have never seen a doctor review the formulary before writing a prescription.

Absolutes seem to be statements of other dimensions that are not rational.

Will Trivial Pursuit, the board game I enjoyed playing in the 1990s, when my group collected versions in different languages ​​and someone translated from English, French, German, still be available? The general knowledge questions covered six aspects drawn on the board and were asked from the answer cards on the back. Even Ecuador had its own version.

As is obvious, knowledge is much more than collecting data. It calls for the formulation of precise questions to seek answers, which cannot be unique or discriminatory in relation to others. Desired wisdom brings together viewpoints, awakens dialectical mobility, and takes positions known to be temporary and changeable. Absolutes seem to be statements of other dimensions that are not rational. But since we are sensitive and imaginative animals, science views us as beings whose emotions are trapped by reality, in that other language that must circulate through internal pathways to become an idea. And building such a wide fabric that it cannot have a single author, the accumulated legacy is infinite.

The naive game of competition is a constant activity. Always ask. Find the answers. (OR)