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Friday, February 10, 2012

Knowledge- The Limiting Factor?

Here I start with a very small anecdote about my friend, his name was Knowledge. All respected him because of his easy grasp of all information. All seemed fine with him until one day he came to know that people behind his back were all calling him by different names (barring me), as days passed by he became aware of all the names he was called by:

Kooky
Nerdy
Oddball
Wobbly
Lackadaisical
Empirical
Deranged
Gauche
Egregious

These names were invented to explain his actions with some finding him isolated, boring, crazy at times, careless and shy. Till now he had always been aware of what only he thought of himself, but now hearing what others think of him, he was worried.



We have so often heard that Knowledge is perhaps the most important thing to all of us. There are infinite places that you will find having written about the importance. I am not going to contradict that ever, but is it all green grass on this side of the fence? Does knowledge have some limitations? Yes, I do feel it has.
You might have seen during your younger age, cartoons which showed that, the lack of knowledge of gravity, allowed one to walk high in the air with no physical support, which is actually not possible, but still, in a similar fashion knowledge does draw some unexpected boundaries...

Am I going to put knowledge in new light? No!

Knowledge can sometimes be inconvenient. For example: In my country, it has been common to eat fast/ junk food sold near the road-side for at least many decades, but of recent this has been reducing. Partly it's because people have come to know that these foods are unhealthy in various ways. This has caused people who used to eat the same food near the same road side shop/ cart to stop eating that anymore, or even if they eat their stomach's have become more sensitive to these foods due to these occasions becoming rare occurrences.

Knowledge leads to a confused state of mind as we are spoiled for choices. These days, there are innumerable sources for gaining additional knowledge, but many end up being contradicting. This does not mean that knowledge should be put away by all. It only becomes the job of the receiver to sieve through them (the choices) and decide which path to follow. For example, some say dieting helps in reducing weight but others say it does not. At the end, this has been argued about a lot, but at the end it is hard to argue the basic fact that exercise can healthily bring down one's weight or at least keep it constant.

For those of you reading this article too, some might find it in contradiction to what they believe in, but in places like this it becomes important to know that though there are many ways to interpret information, there are only some ways which actually give out the intended meaning. In this case, I am not castigating knowledge, but just approaching it from a slightly different viewpoint.

As can be seen here, knowledge can become a limiting factor unless properly chosen, used and interpreted. This knowledge molds all of us into what we are, and hence knowledge becomes all the more important and is the deciding factor making each of us unique in what we are. This topic though hasn't been given its due as it will require pages upon pages to describe its true effect but I hope I have done justice with this minimal space that I have used.