This post was originally published Nov. 17, 2022 with 52 total views, most of them myself. Probably.
If I were to pick only five of my works out of all of them I have published, this would be in that list.
I can’t say why, perhaps because it contains a quote from Andrew Schulz of all people, perhaps because I remember exactly when the inspiration for this piece struck me, or perhaps because I love the concept of the unknown unknown.
Who knows?
As I am unable to control myself, choice edits have been made. The substance, the meat, and those ole potatoes are all still there. I have since grown less fond of overlong sentences, so I’m givin’ ‘em the ole chop chop.
I much prefer the way I wrote when this was published originally to how I write now. Much fluff is added and it tends to distract from the points I intend to make. Hence why I’m coming back to these ole faithfuls.
So, in the interest of (myself) and of highlighting some concepts I so very much love (as well as working to revert SOMEWHAT back to a more straightforward style of communication) I am adding onto this as well. Clarifying remarks, Bradley Cooper references, all the necessities.
This is a topic I want to explore far more than I have put in this post, but this is the start of it so perhaps it will jump start something far more robust putting out into the ether.
A man with no aspiration sees dreams as arrogance. - Andrew Schulz
Why?
Why pursue knowledge past the requirements for my job or career path? There's a quick and easy answer to that one; so that you aren't stupid and narrow in your decisions and interpretation of events.
There are issues with simple answers to complex questions, however. You run into problems when thinking about the totality of the potential versus the realized knowledge of mankind. Then you add in how we are unable to truly fathom how vast either category is. Finally we add onto that the unknown unknown.
This concept states that we have no idea what we don't even know. We don’t know what we don’t know to ask about or question yet. The amount of information in the universe is limitless or as close to limitless as possible. Practically speaking it is limitless, a la Bradley Cooper.
In other words we don’t yet know the questions we’ll need to ask, because there are whole regions of knowledge still invisible to us. The universe holds so much information that, for all practical purposes, it might as well be infinite. Much like the boundless intellect imagined in Limitless (hence ole Rocket Raccoon getting the nod earlier).
For instance, how vast is the universe, really? We have an idea, to an extent, but in reality we are just guessing. That applies to a lot of what people may call "settled science". Science is the process of questioning what is known and performing experiments to either prove or disprove the theories.
With that much knowledge missing, we could all be considered stupid in a century or two and are likely to be seen that way. Think about how we perceive those who were certain the sun revolved around the Earth.
So no, learning isn't only to ensure you aren't stupid, that's too shallow a reason (to a point). We learn because we have to and we are driven to. We learn because it's necessary to our survival and our ability to continue in this life without being completely overwhelmed and unable to move forward.
We are curious by default and by necessity. Babies crawl around and coo, they reach and grab, they look around and try to see new things. Toddlers push boundaries and throw fits. School age children play complex games and attempt to talk about ideas or facts with their peer groups.
Adolescents and teens try and talk about complex ideas and they explore relationships with the opposite sex. All of this is exploring and learning. It is a hunger both literally and figuratively.
It works on the same circuit your hunger does, meaning if you aren't seeking knowledge you're starving yourself in that realm. Embrace that instinct and it will serve you well.
It will keep your mood up and help you find purpose and meaning in your life. It will help you become a well rounded contributor in your employment, your family, and your community. Learn to feel better, work better, love better. You will be an asset to everyone around you and that seems worthwhile to me.
It occurs to me I may need to expand on that point a bit, so bear with me. The same dopaminergic circuitry that drives you to seek out food when your stomach is empty is also responsible for driving exploratory behavior, learning, and curiosity.
The neurochemical dopamine doesn’t merely reward you for acquiring sustenance; it anticipates rewards, especially when novelty or complexity is involved. It pushes you toward what might be meaningful, what might help you survive or thrive.
In fact, the regions of the brain that light up when you pursue knowledge (the mesolimbic pathway, the prefrontal cortex, the hippocampus) are tightly linked to the same survival-oriented systems that respond to hunger. That is not a metaphor. That is neurobiology.
So when you deny yourself exploration, when you stop learning, when you refuse to confront the unknown, you are, in effect, starving. Not your body, perhaps, but your mind. Your spirit. You’re suppressing a system that has evolved over hundreds of thousands of years to keep you alert, adaptive, and alive.
And what happens when we starve? We become irritable. Apathetic. Depressed. Weak. The same occurs when you starve your sense of purpose, your sense of novelty, your need to understand and contribute. You suffer when you don’t explore.
Conversely, when you feed this drive by taking on a challenge, learning a new skill, wrestling with a difficult idea, you feel alive. Your mood improves. Your resilience increases. You become less brittle in the face of uncertainty because you’ve trained yourself to move toward it rather than flinch away. In this way, intellectual and existential nourishment becomes as essential to your well-being as food or water.
Feed your hunger for understanding, and you will find that your capacity to work, to love, to endure suffering, and to act meaningfully in the world will grow in tandem. You will be a source of strength for yourself, your family, your workplace, and your community.
And that, as far as I can tell, is a life worth striving for.
Which is nice.
Here’s a bonus because I thought it would be funny to have Rocket Raccoon himself star in Limitless instead of that weird voice actor guy:
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Limitless information is the Universe I like that!