The desire to know without learning
Goodness, I want to be smart. I want my brain to be full of yummy, yummy knowledge. I want to be the guy with a million ideas. I read articles about startups and think, “Gee, I’d like to do that.” The clever inventor who sells his work for a life of wealth is equally attractive.
And yet, here I am again watching videos on YouTube. Or browsing Reddit. Or reading articles about the next big thing.
This clearly shows a gap between what I want to be doing and what I am willing to do. I’ll call it the student daze.
Right now, I should be finishing the last half of that book. I know I should. The book report has to be turned in tomorrow after all. But I’d rather shoot the breeze. And thereby destine myself to make a mad rush at the deadline, albeit postmortem.
So I catch myself day-dreaming about awesomeness, greatness and adventure, and remind myself that wanting to know is good. But all knowledge is learned. None of it is inhaled. None of it soaks in subconsciously while watching fail videos. There’s no smartsy dust to be sprinkled upon me by a Thinker Bell.
How badly you want to learn is a gauge of how fast you’ll end up knowing.
