Knowledge, The Double Edged Sword

This was the very first thing I wrote publicly. “You are water. Each moment is the path you travel, a stream of humanly inalterable time with highs and lows, rapids and calm, each owing the other its existence. Without each extreme’s counterpart, what would it be? There would be no such description, just as there exists no description for anything else that is nothing to us. And yet, water needs no opinion. It simply takes what shape it must to flow.”

  I know a lot more now than I did then, but I often doubt it’s done as much good for me as a simpler headspace. Not all, in fact, very little information serves to make us wiser. Most of it obscures and clouds a wisdom already inherent to the human condition. 

   Take politics for example. We personally don’t feed ourselves news, because we know it will sew opinions within us that will make it more difficult to flow in conversation, meet people where they’re at, and see people for who and what they truly are beneath their labels and beliefs. 

   Buddhism and the Tao talk about emptying yourself for this very reason; I can’t help but agree that limiting ourselves to only the most useful information benefits us the most. The kind that keeps us healthy. The kind that helps us understand ourselves and each other. The kind that helps us accept the things outside of our control. The kind that helps us put aside our differences and love each other more.

   Most of that is only found within.