Because knowing about something means starting to see its limits, its constraints, thus rendering said something into a finite ‘chamber,’ and my chamber feels like it’s growing smaller the more I know of other chambers.
We had this poet-philosopher in Romania back in the 1910s-1960s (-ish), Lucian Blaga, who had an interesting philosophy about knowledge which merged the rational concept of Knowledge with the somewhat artistic sense of Knowing. In his view, there were two types of knowledge, Luciferian knowledge and Paradisian knowledge: Luciferian knowledge was, essentially, the Concrete, that which can be fully conceptualised, and Paradisian knowledge was closer to a feeling of Understanding without having the concept which is understood - he takes it to near magical levels in his explorations of the concept, but it’s essentially a sort of Intuition+.
Now, the dude had some controversial views and leanings in a period of immense political turmoil (we were in the process of squeezing ourselves out of being a Monarchy and he kinda’ sided with the Monarchists), but his poetry mostly reflects a sense of humbleness before the wonders of the world, a deep sense of apreciation for all that exists (with very obvious religious undertones, but it never felt dishonest), and a desire to keep it that way. His theory about knowledge is best represented through his poetry (Eu nu strivesc corola de minuni a lumii being his most well-known and his most relevant in this sense).
I don’t fully agree with the guy, nor am I an avid reader of his poetry (I respect it, but it’s not my jam), but this realisation reminded me that there has been at least one other person who felt it. Trouble is, my brain needs information constantly, so off I go to suck the Vastity right outta my world!
Edit: I think this has primarily to do with the fact that creativity and intuition are both very pronounced in my cognition, and they start being left idle more and more as concrete conceptualisation takes shape and the more rational processes take over the bulk.
You’ve obviously put a lot more thought into this than I ever will, but I’ve never reached a point of claustrophobia, more the opposite, like agoraphobia. Every time I learn a little more there’s references to things I don’t know yet so need to learn those to understand that. But surprise! That topic also has references and underlying details I don’t understand and haven’t heard of before.
I get very intimidated by the awareness of the sheer scope of my ignorance.
I can certainy understand your viewpoint, there are layers upon layers of unknowns. I can see how that Vastity can be overwhelming.
Gives new meaning to ignorance is bliss…
But seriously, take solace in the fact that you can never know everything about something. Physics, math, random subjects, you name it. The world and knowledge forever increase. So there is no way in your lifetime you’ll ever fill a chamber. Thinking you can is limiting hubris on your end. The more you learn, the more you’ll realize there’s so much you don’t know.
That is the flipside and my main motivation for constantly seeking new information. At worst, this entire thing leaves me with a sort of melancholy centered around the idea that one of my desires is slowly chipping away at one of my pleasures, even though the first will always trump the latter in this case (I’d rather suffer with the truth in my lap).
What about thing we as a species don’t yet know yet? The more we know the more we know we don’t know.
I’m no psychologist, but I do have racing thoughts as an engineer type shell over an artistic skeleton with a consistent stream of visual ideas. If you’re anything like me, then I ask, what other intellectual and creative outlets do you have besides reading up on subjects? Could the fear of completing a topic stem from realization you have no way to apply it?
I’ve had some of those, yes, but it usually comes after learning enough about the ‘affected’ subject to be able to do a cost-benefit analysis of what it would mean to risk seeking mastery of it. It doesn’t come as a fear of completion, it comes as a fear of it taking up too much space and leaving me with too little for everything else in which I’m interested. I genuinely don’t think completion in itself is ever possible, either from a practical or philosophical perspective.
To answer your question, I also like to write (journaling - which has slowly shifted toward writting essays for my own understanding, poetry), to paint, to draw, to mess around with Legos (which is, so far, the only medium which does an awesome job at accommodating both my artistic/intuitive and my rational components), to ponder (i.e. sitting in silence for a while and just chewing through the info I have, trying to establish new and useful connections between all elements), and reading a lot of fiction (primarily hard sci-fi). Oh, and I like to people-watch - which is somewhat improperly said, because I’m not there solely for the people, I like to observe the system of interactions unfolding
In different words, I think we have a similar idea. I said completion, you said mastery. I said no way to apply the new knowledge, you said not enough room to house other topics of interest. So if you want to continuously expand your knowledge to a sufficient degree but don’t want to reach the end, what is the goal?
Lego is great. It gives you literal building blocks to skip the creation of building blocks and go straight to synthesis and assembly. It’s like if you made a painting with a book of stickers of common brush strokes. They’re limited in certain ways like being a square grid for the most part, but build until there’s a physical limitation. Either use some hinges, or start getting involved with other build materials.
General art is something I’ve enjoyed creating but my skill isn’t great. I’ve currently focused on building utilitarian things with a new home. Wish there was a shelf unit of these exact dimensions? Sounds like a trip to buy lumber then. Could be the perfect little monitor riser deck. You could say I’m bad at building things but I prefer to say I’m good at building bad things. They work, they’re just a little ugly.
But back to the main topic. While I certainly promote educational pursuits and productive use of time, if it causes this much stress every time, I think you should consider it might be some type of anxiety. I know the immediate goal is learn more, but where does it go from there? What’s the real underlying goal? It may not be obvious to you. Is it to create success in your career? To establish superiority over your peers? If it was purely a joyous pursuit, I don’t think you’d be posting about it like this. Don’t stop learning, but beware of burnout as well as be considerate towards yourself when you reach some end point in a topic.
For me, the goal is managing to form as accurate a big picture view as possible. It’s a bit weird to me, too, as although my brain is famished for unnecessary details, when it comes down to the Overall (too early, don’t have a better word), it starts focusing on the essentials, trying to link everything it has gathered in a coherent mess. This may be related to how I grew up, I always had to be aware of the situation in our family for my own survival (know the players and how to play them).
Exactly, it’s like painting through engineering! That’s why I love it, the engagement it offers is incredibly nuanced if one goes beyond the instruction booklets and starts doodling with components! And there’s always a work-around, which is what I love even more in a way. I sorta’ go into a fugue state every time I’m building and end up with things which surprise even me!
Well, fancy that! I’ve recently decided to renovate my old place and turn it into my own little bunker on the ground and, same, I’ve started DIY-ing my way to success! It’s like Legos, but with more splinters! And, yes, art can be fickle once one starts focusing on skill, I’ve found. As the best example I can offer as to why skill has less to do with it than passion and openness, I’ve learnt my first ‘complicated’ bass line in a dream, on a 10-hour train ride, two months into studying the bass (a.k.a. owning and playing around with one). I basically didn’t even have skill of which to speak, just started forming it. All I had was a sense of rhythm and a desire to reproduce my favourites.
As for your last point, I must start with an apology, as I may have improperly expressed myself: it’s not stress, exactly, it’s… it feels like remembering pleasant times from earlier in my life, it really is just a benign sense of melancholy. Learning new things has always been a passion for me, the more varied the things, the stronger the kick! It’s just that the facts aren’t always pleasant (Shpoopiro was partly right, I’ll give him that - long live broken clocks, I guess…). And as for a goal, other than my (at this point) in-built instinct to try to form a big picture view, there is only the desire for truth. To me, truth is a sort of moral imperative, it’s strongly rooted in both my set of principles and my spectrum of values. Vast and varied Knowledge is the best path I’ve managed to find which leads to the truth, thus I have no hesitation.
