The Aim Of Knowing Something

I enjoy learning new things. Particularly if it involves why people think a certain way. Recently I’ve been considering the aim of knowing something.

Usually you learn something because it will have utility or an entertainment value. Sometimes we learn something just for the sake of knowing it.

In our youth we must learn many things to form a base knowledge. We learn a language and maths along with history and music. We learn a broad spectrum of things to give us a base information.

Beyond that however, why do we learn things? And are we learning things in an efficient way? What is the aim of knowing something if you won’t use that knowledge to any benefit?

How much of what you learn in a day is provided by an external source? Have you specifically sought to learn about a topic or did it simply happen to be in your newsfeed? Or is it what an editor decided you would see?

Perhaps we should be more selective about what we learn about? If we decided what we wanted to learn about, would we be more effective in our learning?

Think about your day ahead. Are you learning useful things and applying that information to a productive goal? Or are you just drifting through your usual informational smorgasbord and picking up bits and pieces?