We live in a complex world.
To navigate in a complex system you need a detailed map.
To navigate in this complex world you need a detailed understanding.
To get a detailed understanding — you should be LEARNING ALL THE TIME.
I’m usually very critical of the professor, the theoretician, the bookworm, the egghead, the tunnel-visioned, the nerd
This is not true learning
Just like NOT DOING NEW THINGS is not really “doing” anything
Those people are not truly learning. They are masturbating.
I’m also extremely critical of learning separated from action:
“Anyone Is Ignorant But The Real World Doers”
(and much more)
Knowledge separated from action, from practice, is useless. It’s masturbation.
Furthermore knowledge separated from action, from practice, is actually not even knowledge. It has no scientific merit. It doesn’t adhere to scientific method. If it’s not vigorously empirically tested — it’s not real.
Make it practical by testing it in real life — and in testing it make it scientific, actually, in the best meaning of this word.
Having said all of the above — I see nothing but ridiculous ignorance.
And this ignorance is even more pronounced as it is contrasted with our complex modern world.
You’re not a farmer whose only role is to grow some crops, and eat those crops, and sell the rest (no disrespect to farmers).
You’re not a farmer who can’t read — and even if he could — there would be nothing to read.
You’re not a farmer whose only insight into the inexplicable was his local priest, reading from a mediocre old book dating from times even more primitive
You’re not a farmer — you’re a modern man.
Using extremely advanced technology EVERY SINGLE DAY.
Taking advantage of complex infrastructure build around you, designed to make EVERYTHING more efficient, more simple, more helpful, more useful.
Benefiting from a political and economical and cultural systems refined over the millennia.
And with ALL the sophisticated knowledge at his very fingertips.
This is a COMPLEX world.
You have no clue how it works.
Yet there haven’t been easier time to learn ANYTHING.
What an irony
It’s almost as ironic as our unhappiness today.
Throughout the entire human history we had REAL causes of real, tangible unhappiness. Most of those are gone now. And this made being happy harder than ever, for most of us anyway.
This is a complex world
The main reason why anyone’s reality is dissatisfying is always what he TANGIBLY IMPROVES TODAY. This is the foundation. Find more FIRE in your life.
But the second reason has to be this rampant, blatant ignorance.
Everything is run for you, everything is ready for you to just be a will-less, mindless, PAWN, an NPC, and docilely VEGETATE through the entirety of your life
You don’t have to do anything, you don’t have to know anything, it’s all being taken care for you, it’s all being DECIDED for you
Even your protest is manufactured, learned, inherited memetically, downloaded from the fucking internet.
This is a complex world
And chaotic world
To deal with the chaos you want to EXPERIMENT MORE, practice 1000 kicks — until you stumble upon the GOLDMINE
And to deal with complexity — you should LEARN EVERY SINGLE DAY
Not learn nonsense, not news, not any single nerdy subject — but LEARN EVERYTHING YOU CAN about HOW THIS WORLD WORKS,
And of course how your PSYCHE WORKS
Learn all you can, every day
Be curious about EVERYTHING
Explore everything
Know a little about a lot
This is a complex and sophisticated world and you must become sophisticated