Many years ago I was watching Richard Burton as a middle aged man talking about a new poem he had found by Robert Frost – one of only two poems of much worth he ever wrote in my opinion – which started ‘Some say the world will end in fire…’ and I remember as a young man being surprised that a thespian of Burton’s calibre had only just found a poem I have known for years.
Thinking about it now I recall the saying that some people think others ignorant for not knowing a fact they had only just learned themselves. Of course no one can know everything and in countries around the world there are established bit of art and history everyone is supposed to share, everything else seems to be up for grabs. And rather than be surprised what I should have thought was, ‘ah, well done I am glad you found that one’. Just as I have found new poems by listening to other people.
Humanity as a race has a lot of knowledge but we can only share those bits we know as individuals but that does not mean we should not be fascinated by what everyone else knows.