Here are some facts you probably didn't know. Tirana is the capital of Albania. Sarcoidosis is an
immune system disease characterized by small nodules in various organs. Flatworms lack endocrine
glands. If the rest of this chapter were so boring, you would probably stop reading soon. People
generally use perception and inference to acquire knowledge that matters to them, not just isolated
pieces of information that are irrelevant to their lives. But if you are excited about a trip to the
Balkans, or worried about a lump in your lymph nodes, or fascinated by invertebrate anatomy, then
you may well become interested in Albania, sarcoidosis, or flatworms. Emotions such as excitement
and worry shape our knowledge of reality by guiding us to acquire information that matters to us.
Although there are destructive emotions like deep depression that sometimes suck all meaning out of
people's lives, without emotion there would be no sense of what matters, and hence no wisdom.