At any given subject you have a certain understanding

This understanding could be shallow and general, or it could be deep and detailed

 

There are two reasons why you don’t necessarily always want a high level of detail:

-observing, understanding details, then creating a detailed model — are resources-consuming. You may want to devote those resources to exploring different models, learning and doing different things

-high level of detail does not always necessitate a more effective method, more effective decision-making process, more accurate predictions. In some cases it actually makes decision-making harder (I may write more about it once)

 

Thus at any given subject you will have a certain understanding at certain level of depth and expertise

On some matters you will be so clueless that attempting them will not only lend no benefit — but will be outright harmful

On some matters you will be competent to deal with them at an elementary level, to achieve basic goals

On some matters you will be able to act, predict, behave at a very high level

And on some matters you will be overqualified — the extra depth yielding no extra benefit

And then on some matters you will be over-informed, over-learned, and this knowledge will only be a burden: burden in making quick and effective decisions (paralysis by analysis), and burden in UPDATING your knowledge

 

You want to be always aware of this relationship between the SUBJECT — and the DEPTH of your UNDERSTANDING and ABILITY regarding that subject

Because whatever you do you obviously want to maximize the gain

But you ALSO want to minimize the loss

Therefore you don’t want to be an ineffectual amateur. Nor do you want to be a useless impractical expert theoretician. NOR a delusional ignorant. Nor a one-trick pony.

When you do something — you want to do it WELL

But not too well!

And if you can’t do it well (well enough)? You don’t do it, you don’t TOUCH IT. Or else you’ll only make MORE trouble

(unless of course you’re learning — in which case FAILURE is the necessary price to pay, and low, at that)

 

And this is exceptionally difficult, actually

Knowing when you know, knowing when you don’t know

Knowing just how qualified you actually are

Knowing just how skilled you actually are

Knowing if your original perception is brilliant or delusional

Knowing if all which you still don’t know is practically very useful or very useless

Man can know nothing and think they know everything

Or they can know everything except everything they know is useless

Or they can know everything but not those few things which actually matter

Or they can know a lot but their extra knowledge made them not more informed but more proud and delusional — believing they have the answers now

Most often?

Most often those that know nothing think they know everything. It happens to everyone.

And most often those that know a little more that the average think they are already very very advanced.

…but I have seen it all, every unfortunate permutation of the above

 

THEREFORE

At any subject which you deal with, you want to have a META-understanding of your LEVEL of understanding

And how do you get it? You’d want to:

-be aware of the WHOLE body of knowledge there is around the subject (“iceberg”, if you will)

-see the WHOLE of the industry, the movement of practitioners: how the knowledge varies, how the outcomes vary, how the impact varies

-this includes perceiving the limits (the top of the industry, and the bottom), and then perceiving the whole (the average)

-and the top and bottom, and the average, you want to consider their different aspects: the top ability vs the top utility. The average utility, the average ability. Etc.

and that average you want to consider in different aspects: average ability, average utility, et

-and ultimately conceive that “iceberg”, that tree of knowledge, understanding which concepts are the foundations: foundations of knowledge, and likely foundations of success, and main sources of utility

-and again, consider the utility of maximizing any part of the iceberg: are the rewards in exploring the depths, or are the rewards in maximizing the fundamentals?

-and of course, since this is a meta-game, an abstraction-game — this process is never finished. Even if you are profoundly advanced at given subject — here you are not merely concerned with knowing about the subject — you are concerned with KNOWING ABOUT KNOWING about the subject. That means you want to know not only what you know and know to be correct — but also what OTHERS think they KNOW, and how it all RELATES

It is then that you can REALLY APPROXIMATE just how ADVANCED you truly are, RELATIVELY to the whole, and what OUTCOMES you can expect, dealing with given subject

 

EXAMPLES:

 

If you believe in god and are one of the sanctimonious cunts seeing it fit to proselytize others, you should:

-understand just how many religions there are, and have been

-understand the main points of the main religions

-understand the history of religion, it’s historical significance, and it’s current prominence, or lack thereof

-have a general grasp of the overlapping fields: philosophy, sociology, psychology, even science

 

If you consider your political views precious, so precious so as to impose your views on others, then you should:

-have a basic grasp of all the political movements there have been: both practically and theoretically

-have basic familiarity with the WHOLE of the human history, and different methods of organising society, throughout the ages

-again, general grasp of the overlapping fields: economy, sociology, religion…

 

if you want to consider yourself GOOD at what you do, a good businessman, a good artist, a good engineer, what should you do?

-have a basic grasp of all the skills and knowledge pertaining to your profession

-have an advanced grasp of the main concepts

-understand what the main concepts are, by understanding what is the industry standard

-now of course understand your entire industry thoroughly

-know who is the best, know what is the minimum acceptable threshold, and know what the average is,

-understand that your industry has sub-industries, and perhaps they are governed by their own rules. You want to understand those sub-industries, and how they relate to the rest of the industry

-understand how the industry may perhaps comprise of conflicting beliefs and practices, different trends and ideas, sometimes completely opposed to each other

-understand HOW those trends emerged, and how they relate to one another

-and always understand at what LEVEL of DETAIL given trend is: how deep it is in relation to the main tenets, and how valuable it is in the general context

maybe it’s too deep and detailed, without carrying with it any extra utility. Or perhaps it is literally the future, the new trend, the gateway to the higher level, and exponential advancement.

 

Now,

there’s a single caveat

Just like your understanding of given subject will always be innately limited (in real world everything is infinitely complex and nothing is truly certain, not outside of theory),

so will your understanding of understanding of given subject be limited,

And just like the ultimate purpose of knowing anything is DOING THINGS — and the only way of TRULY KNOWING is by DOING,

(e.g. no amount of theory will give you better proof of your ability to ride a bike than riding that bike 1000 times, and indeed the only purpose of knowing how to ride a bike is RIDING that fucking bike)

Likewise the only way to learn the truth HOW MUCH YOU TRULY KNOW, AT WHAT DEPTH — is by CHALLENGING that KNOWLEDGE, challenging that DEPTH — and with ACTION

You can answer all the questions i posed and use all the tools and cure some of your meta-ignorance, ignorance about your own expertise or lack thereof,

You can ask those questions and realize just how advanced you are, actually

You can compare yourself to the best, compare yourself to the worst, you can compare the results, etc — and get some better grasp

But ultimately?

If you truly want to know — you just have to TEST IT YOURSELF

by DOING THINGS

by CHALLENGING yourself

UNENDINGLY CHALLENGING YOURSELF

 

And even if your goal is to only reach a certain level, at which you reckon you are maximizing the ROI (return of investment) — even then you will best know you have actually reached that level if you have ATTEMPTED to reach a level even higher.

Because you really can’t know which level will yield the best ROI — not until you tested it

So you will continue to UP your level — until you reached a point of diminishing returns

And only THEN do you know for sure

You can predict that with some accuracy by approximating the whole of the industry/discipline, by studying the iceberg,

But only by TRYING do you actually know

 

Concluding,

-I recommend having a meta-understanding of the understanding and skill you have in everything you do

-You will know where your training is lacking, and where it’s about sufficient

-But I also recommend a mindset of continues growth, curiosity, exploration, ELEVATION of everything that you DO (and thus know)

-In DOING you will invariably learn where your limits are, when the results are beginning to diminish, but also what is POSSIBLE

-please DO push EVERYTHING to the limit — just for the sake of it !!!

-while in the same time retaining a shrewd meta-understanding of how everything you know and are able to do related to what the world knows and is able to do