One of the secrets of happiness is keeping a level of curiosity, and generally the more things that interest you, and the more likely you are on hearing about something to research it further, the happier you are.
Often this is referred to as intellectual curiosity, however it can be studying the story behind how soaps are made, or looking up your family history or birth stones, so its not necessarily either serious or academic.
Up until relatively recently the cost and space required made it impractical for many people to have extensive libraries, but with the internet available now cheaply and so much information now available plus new areas such as the world-wide-library about to come on stream, in the future knowledge is available when required by anyone anywhere. Many people will still say they would never read a whole book, while they read a fat magazine from cover to cover that contains the same number of words.
The internet also opens up more possibilities to stretch the mind and take part in discussions via message boards and in other ways, allowing you to ask why, how, and what in so many areas, and to discuss different peoples ideas and share with them what they have learnt, while only a small time ago this would not have been possible but to a few.
Throughout life we learn, and discover constantly new areas of knowledge and new interests, and only those that fail to do this age rapidly. The learning process and ability to ask why, and how, should continue throughout life, and there is so much exciting information to find out, places to visit, and skills you can learn if you want that the only problem should be finding enough time to fit it all in.
