For the Lovely Few With an Insatiable Hunger for Knowledge and Greatness
I care about learning. I just don’t care about learning from everyone.
Sometimes I learn because I’m curious. But most of the time I learn because I’m headed towards a vision and I need specific tools to get there. I’m not interested in learning as a personality trait or a moral performance. Thus don’t have the habit of learning something “just in case”. That to me is That to me is food hoarding, but under the guise of intellectualism.
I like my life the way it is: I love that I’ve reached a level of nonchalance that offends people who think they knew me and intrigues those who haven’t. I love that I no longer outsource my decisions to other people’s opinions, and that I act—quietly, without asking permission—on what I know is right for me. I love that my life centers around my impulses, because for me, that is the only way it works.
That is why life doesn’t feel out of rhythm with my body, even though I still go to school and still keep time. To live this way, I had to give up being an overachiever, collecting perfect grades as proof of worth. And that’s fine. Nothing is worth sacrificing my bodily rhythm for.
So no, I’m not wandering around confused or empty. I’m already busy cultivating my own thing, which is precisely why I don’t invite every opinion into it like it’s an open house.
People love to say you should talk to as many people as possible because it expands your worldview. That may be true if one’s sole ambition is to accumulate experiences. But I don’t want my worldview expanded indiscriminately. I want my life a certain way. And some people’s worldviews resemble lives I would hate to live. Proximity to that does not enrich me. It irritates me.
I pay attention to people who are genuinely intelligent in areas I want to be good at. I engage with people who share my values. I show up for people who are actually part of my life in a real way. Everyone else exists, and that’s fine.
I don’t believe more input automatically makes life richer. Sometimes it just makes it messier. Sometimes it adds nothing except opinions I didn’t ask for.
I’m not trying to absorb the world. I’m trying to shape mine. If something fits, I’ll take it. If it doesn’t, I won’t. That’s why you’ll never catch me overexerting myself to understand why something doesn’t resonate, as though accommodation were a moral obligation.
Again, learning, for me, is directional. Sure I don’t expect it to be linear, but I’m not a hippie collecting vibes. I’m that person with a plan, mildly amused, and dancing past conversations that don’t concern me.
XOXO
To those with an insatiable hunger for knowledge and greatness: you don’t have to know everything that’s out there. Social media has you convinced that being “disgustingly over-educated” is something to perform, display, and monetize. It isn’t. What matters far more is knowing yourself, really, really well.