In 6th or 7th grade I told my class that it was obvious that purchasing expensive sneakers is mostly just a way to show how cool you are or that you can afford something that not everyone else could. Many years latter I would read about signalling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signalling_(economics)

The following are not ideas as much as questions I had while growing up, and I was surprised/relieved/happy to find out that other people much smarter than me, spent a lot of time thinking about and is "a thing". For example I really wanted to know if there was a satisfactory way to figure out if Christianity was the one true religion and it bothered me very much that I could not answer that question. Also, I was concerned that the future might not be what I want it to be, and I am not sure that I know what I even want. It turns out that this isn't a unique problem and there are many people thinking about it. Also, what the heck is consciousness? Is there one correct moral theory? Well, someone is working on it.