Wednesday 23 December 2009

Knowledge is wasted?

When I was young, I had a thirst for knowledge that has diven me through my life (thus far). I wanted to know how and why about everything and had a belief (of sorts) that if we understand enough we can make a better world... I reached a point where I learned; People cannot know everything; Indeed it seems noone can know everything. So I then choose "something" to know everything about (reasoning if I can't know everything, I can know everything about something). I kept my topic small and useful to me thinking this was a wisdom. So I learned about computers, specialising in Microsoft systems and the PC...

I still want to know "all" the answers but having lived half my life asking questions i'm finding that knowledge alone is pointless (and the answers disapointing). The more you learn, the more there is to learn. On top of this, we are all generating new knowledge all the time. Each of us is creating something to be learned about. Even if we just took the output of two very casual individuals it can be a lifetime of learning.

So thats the first lesson... knowledge is infinite.

The second thing is, life does not reward people for knowledge. Society "appears" to reward knowledge and to some extent it indirectly does. The reality I find is that society rewards whatever rewards it (so, if a person lacking in knowledge can give more of a reward than one with knowledge.. well). So, knowledge itself is no reward, its the application of knowledge that brings reward over the lack of knowledge (since in applying knowledge over people who are not applying such knowledge we can offer more reward). I find that most of the people applying knowledge and profiting from its application are not the people who generated the knowledge and often have no real understanding of the knowledge they are applying.

These people have learned that knowledge of itself is a millstone. Where as, knowledge of people and of the system is a boon. So maybe one could say some knowledge is more valuable (though this has nothing to do with "value" as I would see it).

I've gone far with knowledge.. I've travelled the world. I've lived 22,000 miles from my home. I've created many ammazing things... but whats it all worth? its brought me very little joy.

Then, maybe i'm just a miserable person. Though I never felt I was. I'll keep you posted.