There are people who know a lot, but don’t do. There are people who do a lot, but don’t know. And then there is the golden minority of people who learn, execute, learn some more and execute some more.
Knowledge is power, but too much information without action leads to “heady people.” People who “sit” in their head all the time, thinking and ruminating, not taking a chance. They know everything about everything, but nothing seems to click in their life. Or not in all areas of their life.
Then there are people who just do. They’re not considerate of other people or they take a lot of action and learn from their own mistakes. But these people also don’t grow because without new information they do not improve. In my opinion, this category of people is better though because you get a lot done.
In most cases action > inaction.
What I am trying to say with this post is that too much information can be harmful. Knowledge vs. action is like a scale you have to keep perfectly balanced to maintain harmony within yourself.
Information can clutter you, just like physical possessions can clutter your home.
That’s why you only want to keep what you’ll use. To learn what you will put into practice. And put into practice what you know.
I once had an interesting conversation with a classmate. We were discussing if there is such a thing as “too smart.” I told him there is and he was very upset with my answer. This showed me, how in this society we value IQ so much we disregard other areas in our life. As the expression goes, “She was too smart for her own good.”
The end goal is to be a happy harmonious individual. And the information you are consuming should bring you closer to that goal. Sometimes, the absence of information does just that.
An old teaching says that wisdom is knowledge experienced…wisdom=knowledge(experienced)
In other words it strongly resonates with what you’re offering here, by taking action based on what you know you are able to anchor in that knowing as wisdom…you are now able to live with that wisdom forever and don’t require memory to hold that knowledge for you, it’s embodied and can’t be lost.
For example you know what heat feels like, how water feels on the skin, the taste of a strawberry…you’ve become wise to these things which make your concepts, ideas and memories about them obsolete…in this example you will never not know the feeling of water. You are wise to water.
I believe this is a lost art, and conversations like these bring me hope that wisdom can be found again. Thanks for your insight.
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