I can see very starkly now, pretty much for the first time, the difference between "modern novels" and earlier fiction. I don't know why something like this should have taken so long, and it's realizations of that sort which make me question my own intelligence. Why didn't I understand this before now? It doesn't seem difficult or uncommon. It seems like many people are interested in and understand things like this in high school, and here I am at 24 still stuck on things that really aren't very interesting. Am I wrong?

I'm trying to figure out what I meant by "things like this" above. The most simple interpretation is that I mean developments in art. The understanding that there is a qualitative difference between, say, sixties pop songs and punk rock, or between European fashion and American. On another level, I think I mean a level of cognition that would also comprehend the second meanings of politicians, or the fake world of advertising. Behold my inferiority complex: I actually often think that my capacity to understand is lower than aware high school students.