From Accounting to Chinese Characters to Meaning of the Universe

So I have starting taking an introductory accounting course at a local community college. Learning accounting is very much like writing numbers in Chinese. How so, you ask. Well the number "one" is denoted by a horizontal stroke; "two" is two horizontal stroke, with the top stroke approximately 2/3 the length of the bottom one; "three" is three strokes, top and bottom strokes resemble that of a "two" with the middle one being the shortest stroke.

My grandmother told me this story when I was a kid: a boy started learning how to write. On day one he learned to write "one"; day two, "two; day three, "three." This genius incarnated then told his tutor that, "Okay, I get the gist of it all, your service is no longer needed," and let go of his tutor. The parents (being Chinese) were delighted that they had a genius son, so the mother asked the son to write an envelope for her, addressed to "Mr. Ten Thousand" (yeah, that's a last name). Son said, "no problem, mom." Half a day had passed and the mother still has yet to see the envelope, so she went and asked the son. The son replied, "but mother, 'ten thousand' has a lot of strokes."

What does that have to do with accouting, you asked. Well, upon finishing chapter 1, I thought to myself (being the genius that I am), "This stuff is easy. I am going to be the next super star at H&R Block, working only 4 months out of a year. Heck! I am ready to start tomorrow!" Then I thought I'd speed past chapter 2 in no time. Wrong! Chapter 2 introduced the wonderful accounting concept of credit and debit. To give you a glimpse of why I was stuck: "each transaction has a debit and a credit. A credit or a debit can be either addition or subtraction..." How is that for confusing?

Regardless, I figured it was just one of those "humps" in studying a new concept. Once I get passed that hump, rest will be a breeze. Sure enough, once I've figured out that "debit" and "credit" and nothing more than "left" and "right," the rest of the studying went smoothly.

Then comes chapter 3, adjusting the accounts -- the balance at the end of the month might not reflect the true balances of a company, therefore adjustments are necessary. Wasn't too hard of a concept. This time I felt for sure that I have learned everything I'd ever need to know about accounting.

Then there comes chapter 4... and that's when I realized there are still all these nitty gritty little concepts that are involved. Heck! There might even be a few major concepts that I can't even begin to imagine or comprehend at such an early stage. Beginning accounting is a three course series, and then there's still tax accounting and all the advance courses. And this is only the lower division courses...

Perhaps trying to figure out what life is all about is the same thing. Perhaps our existence on earth right now is just a phase; a phase out of many, many phases. Let's pick a finite, comprehensible number. Say, thirty. But being at phase 1 (or maybe even phase 5 and we just don't remember the previous phases), it is simply not possible for us, at this point in the space-time continuum, to even begin to imagine, and let alone understand, the whole picture.