"Grok" was a word from Stranger in a Strange Land, a great science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein. Starship Troopers, another one of his books that I read as a teenager, was popular with a completely different group of people. I didn't really think about why the two groups were so different until I got involved with the political system.

Then I realized that we really need a new scale for adventure, just as the other side of the blister pack advertises.