The average person thinks of “education” as a destination. Something that you do as a child and teenager to prepare you for “the real world”, where you can stop learning things and start “making them stacks” and all that.
And that’s why the average person completely sucks.
It’s a common theme amongst the alternosphere that “normies” are complete human offal for a variety of reasons: whether it be the complacency they showcase in their lives, their mindless consumerism, or their blind acceptance of society’s memes. Regardless of what the complaint is, I feel that all of them have the same root cause:
They’re closed minded. More damningly, they don’t even see the benefit of learning anything new once they’ve settled into their life’s routine. And in my mind, that is a goddamn tragedy. I’m not the greatest man in the world (nor have I ever claimed to be), but one of the many things that sets me apart from the average slob is that, simply, I am always willing to learn new things, and actively seek out new knowledge and skills to learn.
First of all, I want you to realize something: It’s 2016 (I’m not using that phrase in the memetic sense). You are a free man, in law if perhaps not in practice. You likely have a library near you, and if you’re reading this article then by definition you have a device that can access the internet. You literally have more knowledge at your fingertips than the kings of old, a virtual Alexandria that can satisfy your curiosity about literally any topic you could be curious about—not just blogs such as this fine thinkpiece you’re currently perusing but books! Actual books that you can find on websites such as Gutenberg.org and Ebooks.com, two favorites of mine (the former more so than the latter due to the latter being a poorly programmed mess). The only reason you wouldn’t use this treasure trove of information before you is if you don’t have the desire to obtain new information.
On that note…why would you not have the desire to learn new things? Again, if you’re here, you probably believe that you are an aristocrat of the soul, who is above the average people that walk the street. So why don’t you act like it? Why don’t you give yourself the ability to converse about things, ANYTHING, other than sportsball and crappy TV shows? Even if you just read classic literature or philosophy for its own sake, you’ve still made yourself a much more interesting person than some sportscuck, regardless of those books’ lack of practical use beyond learning rhetoric.
Speaking of practical measures, one can actively seek out knowledge for the purposes of obtaining practical skill in a variety of endeavors. I myself have learned cooking, home repair, music, and physical culture from books, and there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to either.
(As a side note, I would like to clarify that I am not implying that books are the only method of transferring information, as I have also learned many a thing from audio and visual sources. However, due to their cheapness and books only being capable of being read at the reader’s own pace, I still feel that they are the best method of conveying information)
Hopefully, I’ve managed to convince most of you by now, but I’m sure a few of you are still a bit skeptical—not that you doubt that one CAN learn anything that one studies, but rather, why SHOULD one learn anything other than the skills and knowledge that are necessary for making money?
Because any learning literally exercises the brain!
This is a neuron. It is the basic cellular unit of the two nervous systems: the central nervous system consisting of the brain and spinal cord, and the peripheral nervous system consisting of all the systemic nerves that branch out from the CNS and attach to all the other parts of the body. It evolved to detect and respond to various stimuli, both external and internal. Without going into too much detail, neurons are capable of mitosis, meaning splitting and forming two new cells. Each neuron has a long connection at its tail end known as the axon, and several shorter connections known as dendrites. All neurons are connected to each other through these protoplasmic extensions, and these connections are known as synapses (synapses also connect the neurons to glands, muscle, bone, and etc.)
When the brain is exposed to some new stimuli, a neuron connected to the receiver of that stimuli will fire an electrical pulse, and so will the neurons connected to it, and so forth. Scientists have observed that when the same synapses fire over and over again, the neuro-electrical signaling will become more efficient, and faster. In a manner of speaking, the neurons will become “wired” together.
In practice, what that means is that any task that utilizes those particular neurons will be faster and easier for you. If you read my Return of Kings article on “greasing the groove“, this is exactly what that article referred to: repeated practice with a physical movement will make that movement easier and more efficient, because you are literally forcing the nervous system to have more cells, all of which will connect to muscle cells that are also stimulated into mitosis!
Similarly, even the simple act of concentration and actively absorbing and comprehending information is itself a synaptic activity. Learning about any category of information will make it easier for you to obtain even more information in that field.
And knowing this, you should be able to understand why having a base of knowledge and skills that is both broad and deep can only be a benefit for you: Anything that you learn increases neuromitosis and synapse formation related to that particular information, some of those same neurons will be involved in learning other forms of information, thus more synapses and neurons will form. In short, your mental “fuel tank” will increase, as more neurogenesis will mean, if nothing else, a greater potential for learning.
Learning itself, THINKING itself, is done faster and more efficiently with a greater number of nervous cells and, perhaps more importantly, nervous connections. Thus, the cycle perpetuates itself: In learning something new, you will likely be mentally stimulated, prompting you to learn more, which will make neural connections stronger and thus make the actual act of learning easier.
Or, to put it in the words of a great man, “Knowledge is king”. And now you understand why I teach you such a wide variety of topics: from martial arts and fitness, to rhetoric, to anthropology and literature. In matters both social and biological, having that broad base of knowledge and skill has never done me wrong.