Blogger envy and insight

Now I've got blog entry envy of this posting by friend, Mandi who expanded on her husband's post. I am currently reading a book by a Brazilian author, Paulo Coelho, called Eleven Minutes. After a conversation with someone the other day and trying to figure out my life lately, I was struck by the insight/wisdom of this passage from the book:

"She decided that, for the first time in many years, she would devote the entire day to thinking about herself. Up until then, she had always been preoccupied with what other people were thinking: her mother, her schoolfriends, her father, the people at the model agencies, the French teacher, the waiter, the librarian, complete strangers in the street. In fact, no one was thinking anything, certainly not about her, a poor foreigner, who, if she diappeared tomorrow, wouldn't even be missed by the police.
Fine. She went out early, had breakfast in her usual cafe, went for a stroll around the lake and saw a demonstration held by refugees. A woman out walking a small dog told her that they were Kurds, and Maria, instead of pretending that she knew the answer in order to prove that she was more cultivated and intelligent than people might think, asked:
'Where do Kurds come from?'
To her surprise, the woman didn't know. That's what the world is like: people talk as if they know everything, but if you dare to ask a question, they don't know anything." . . . "Whenever I try to appear more intelligent than I am, I always lose out. Well, enough is enough!"
--from Paulo Coelho, Eleven minutes