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General knowledge questions
Is there a list of general knowledge questions that will help me to know more about the world? I know nothing of trivia and feel like I would get so much more out of life if I just knew more about how the world got to this point. My dad laughed at me when I didn't know who some famous people were, and I feel weird. My dad was surprised I never heard of John Wayne or Maureen O'Hara (I have looked them up since) and I thought my mom was going to hurt me because I didn't know what "Gone with the wind" was. Maybe these people and movies weren't a big deal in Canada where I was born? I don't know, but I am not playing "trivial pursuit" ever again unless you help me figure out what I DON'T know!
Thank you smart people who actually know things! :)
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Don't feel bad the people you named and the movie you named are of your parents and grandparents generation. I would not expect you to know these people. John Wayne and Maureen O'Hara were Hollywood movie stars around the time of WWII up through the mid 50's earl 60"s.
Trivial pursuit really needs to update their game for people of this generation. Do you know who Gene Autry, Dale Evans and Hop along Cassidy are? Of course you don't they were famous western movie stars. You might even be asking what the heck are Westerns as they haven't made one in about thirty or more years.
This type of trivia is the type that slowly becomes less and less important as each generation dies out. Can you imagine sitting around with your children and asking them who John Wayne was or what a western was. They are going to look at you the way you looked at your parents.
Important trivia to me is things we can't let be forgotten. Like the events of 9/11/2001. That was 13 years ago you may not have been born yet. To you it is a historical event. To me it was a current event. I spent 12 hours in a fire station waiting to be called to the Pentagon. The wars of Vietnam, Korea, Iraq and the two world wars and their effect on the future of the world are what is important. The cold war and what effect it had on world events. This has been relegated to trivia as most schools do not teach this type of history.
This is the type of trivial knowledge you will need for the future to insure history does not repeat itself. I don't think your parents should have made fun of you for not knowing who those people were. A famous line from Gone with the Wind is; "Frankly Scarlet I don't give a Damn." Use it the next time they ask you a trivial pursuit question from the early to mid 1900's it will shock the heck out of them. There is no reason for you to know much more than the real history of that time and by your writing that is what you say you’re concentrating on. I support you 100% in that effort. Don't worry about the trivia it's not important any more.
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It sounds like you might actually benefit from watching some classic movies.
There are lot of lists out there of the Top 100 Movies of All Time, and the Top 100 Fiction, or even (if you are ready for a real challenge) the New York Times Non-Fiction lists. A General Knowledge quiz may seem like a good short-cut to knowledge - but it's sort of false knowledge - I think it would be better to actually expose yourself to the culture by really engaging with the art and writing that came out of other eras. When you start doing that, you'll find the things that really jump out to you and the areas that you'll want to develop more expertise in.
Honestly, depending on your parent's ages, John Wayne, Maureen O'Hara, and Gone With the Wind are the same as Madonna or American Idol, or maybe The Beatles or Star Wars are for you. It may seem obvious to them if they lived it, or if they lived just after it while it still a big phenomena, but for you, it's history. John Wayne's last big movie was probably made at least 10 years before you were born, and Gone With the Wind was published in 1936, and made into a movie in 1939. It's great history, but it's history.
These sorts of things you learn by living and giving a damn. Don't rush yourself. Give a bunch of the classics a chance, and look deeper into the things that resonate with you. To borrow a phrase from Miss Cyrus - it's not what's waiting on the other side, it's the climb.
And don't play Trivial Pursuit. I don't know how that game could possibly be any fun for anyone under 40, and if you must play it, make sure you are playing a version that was released in the last 5 years. Too many people will have boxes that are full of questions that were written before you were even born sitting around in their basement It's simply not playing fair to ask general knowledge questions from when Pluto was still a planet and the phrase 'war in Afghanistan' meant the 1970 war between the mujahideen and the Soviets. General knowledge doesn't stay the same.
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