If you ever get saddened by the rancorous state of political discourse and/or the idiocy that infects many Twitter accounts, I suggest you pay a visit to Wikipedia.
No, not the Russian intelligence cutout WikiLeaks, but rather the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.
Whatever your particular area of interest, whether it be history, art, sport, or even theoretical interstellar physics, Wikipedia has articles that can distract and inspire. In my case, Wikipedia is a great relaxation tool for its abundant historical content.
The key is to get lost in the stories.
Go on the World War II Wikipedia page, for example, and you might find yourself up with relatively obscure, but nonetheless important, historical reports on, for example, King Michael’s Coup or Operation Savanna. Want to know about warriors of the past and their strategies? Enter the Mongol Siege of Baghdad in 1258 and the negotiation by Anatolius to win favor with the Huns.
Interested in animals? Then you might wander to the Elephant page and find out about jungle elephants. Or jump to the dolphin page and find out about the migratory habits of jungle dolphins. Or fall into the shark page and find out about bull sharks swimming into flooded towns!
Regardless, the key here is quite simple: Knowledge has great beauty for those who take the time to fall into its easy grip. And Wikipedia, though imperfect, is now well-sourced enough to provide at least a baseline of understanding that can then be fact-checked against other reporting.
The ultimate benefit of Wikipedia, however, is that it gives us an enjoyable insight into things that matter to us. And an insight that propels us to future knowledge and thus to our provision of better citizenship to the nation and to humanity.
If nothing else, it’s a lot better than engaging with screeching morons on Twitter.
