Information Leads To Paranoia or Knowledge
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We are constantly after more information. We hunger for more because we feel as though we never have enough. But is there a too much information (TMI) line?
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Our want is to drink information from a firehose. Our need is to drink it from a straw. The former results in paranoia. The latter, knowledge. The former destroys the soul of America. The latter strengths it. Here’s why.
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Wait? There’s such a thing as TMI? There can’t be. I’m just trying to learn as much as I can. How can I do that if I stop getting more information? I must watch 24/7 news!
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The fallacy in this is believing that information is what we need. It isn’t. Information leads to paranoia when we fail to go through two more steps; understanding and knowledge.
Information
Information is facts, opinions, guesses, truths and lies disguised as truths. If this is as far as we go, then we’re holding a lot of stuff and very little makes sense. We can’t draw meaningful conclusions, and we know it. And because we don’t go further, we become paranoid because we don’t know what to believe.
Why don’t we go further? Because we believe we must drink from a firehose, which leaves no time to go further.
Information is useless, even destructive if it isn’t understood. The problem is understanding requires that we pause our drinking from the firehose in order to think.
Understanding
Understanding is matching up different pieces of information into meaningful comparisons. Information in isolation is meaningless, in combinations it’s meaningful. Making those combinations takes time.
We can’t compare every piece of information against every other piece. There are billions of pieces. We can only do our best to match up pieces that seem to be comparable.
We’re just humans. We can’t do perfection. We can only do up to good enough. We can’t drink from a firehose and understand at the same time.
Knowledge
This is the goal. This is where strengthening America happens and nowhere else. This is the foundation upon which wisdom is built. And it only happens by taking the time to run information through understanding.
Knowledge is the result of pondering new understandings. It’s the realization of beauty, ugliness, pain, suffering, joy, bravery, cowardice, kindness, cruelty: all of the things that make us human.
Closing thoughts
Information is pieces of a puzzle. Understanding is putting the pieces together. Knowledge is looking at the picture the pieces made. Paranoia is looking at the pile of pieces.
One of the dangers of paranoia is our willingness to put a collar and leash on ourselves. We choose to do that because ignorance (lack of knowledge) causes us to want someone, anyone to grab the leash, take us for a walk and tell us, “Sit. Stay.”
We’re not forced to create paranoia. We choose it. We’re not forced to create knowledge. We choose it. That’s what We The People do. We choose.
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Just a fellow American