Can we ever know enough?

sutansyah marahakim
Sep 4, 2018 · 2 min read

There are so many new things we find everyday.

There are so much occurrences happening every day. So many people living unconventional and conventional life.

So many kinds of knowledge I want to learn. So many fascinating subjects, and even those aren’t fascinating enough for me, I still feel the needs to learn them.

On the other hand, I am living in a society who judges others mainly on how much fame and fortune one can amass. Its common for me to hear people talking about how much Instagram follower a person have, and how much money another person gain or invest.

This is a tiring intersection for me, because I tend to not care enough about the two subjects. I enjoy reading articles, watching series, going to movies, jumping from one youtube video to another, also rewatch and reread them all to discover new sensations and acquire new paradigms. I do it because it fuels my inception of new works, another creative pursuit, and many raw material for inspirations.

The bottome line is, I dedicate my life to create things, not to monetize them.

But still, I chose to compromise. I chose a way of living so I do not need to bow to a giant corporation and acquire minuscule of their profit in monthly basis (commonly known as salary). I find a way to support my lifestyle and settle with lesser fortune (That minuscule shared profit is still three times bigger than my pay). The lifestyle of consuming and producing, trying to find a way to monetize some but keep failing, it gives me content. But it also leads me to another question. When will this end? I dare not say that the thought of successful monetization of my work, whether converted into fame and/or fortune, gives a certain “end game” feel. As the world contradict itself with me, I realize this end game is what provide a sense of progress, and my cycle of consuming and producing does not. Why? Because I understand that I will never know enough. The more I know, the more I realize there are more things out there, the more I want to consume knowledge and information. So the fact that so many things are happening out there is another trap to my way of living. It rushes towards my days, it squeezes my mental fortitude, and at the end, it makes me bored.

And so, before I am able to truly solve the first problem, another intersection comes to mind. The map in my mind goes like this. The world wants us to monetize our time. I don’t. Intersection number one. My respond? I choose a way of living that provides me with enough money and enough time. Then I continue to move along the road and realize there is no end of this road. I can take an exit if I want to, but will lose my way of living. Intersection number two. My respond?

My respond?

I’m still working on it.

sutansyah marahakim

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