Surface Dwellers And The Pursuit Of Knowledge Alchemy For Life podcast

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Surface Dwellers and the Pursuit of Knowledge

2d ago 11:06

MP3•Episode home

It sounds like I’m talking about the surface dwellers and we’re all the people who live underground. Well, hey there. Welcome back.

The Discomfort of Partial Knowledge

You may have figured out by now that I like to know things and I like to learn things. And I’ve probably figured out by now that you’re the same. You also like to know things and you like to learn things. And I’m honored that this is one of your sources for information. While this isn’t necessarily an encyclopedia, it is a source for you to have thoughts and maybe challenges to the way that you think. It may introduce something that you weren’t aware of and then may challenge you to do something with that knowledge. In my book, Because, I talk about the causes of preferences and desires like this. I I figured out the cause of why I need to do this. Well, let’s talk about what this is. What this is is I don’t like to not know something.

I know it’s a double negative. I also don’t like to partially know something. In fact, I think I my my distaste for partially knowing something is stronger than my desire to know something. And if you want to put that in terms of my book, it means the monster is stronger for me knowing more than just a little bit than the unicorn for me desiring to know something. If you’re the same way, you may find yourself going down rabbit holes all the time. You may find yourself dwelling on something that that other people just pass by.

You may even get accused of overthinking, fixating, and dwelling. And you are doing none of those things. Because if one person says it’s a combustion engine, and you go, “Well, what do you mean combustion? What what’s combusting? Is something blowing up? What does that mean? How did that work? How do the things blowing up make something turn? When did that when did we invent this? Where did this come from? What other versions of that are there available?” You just want to know because a combustion engine isn’t enough. You feel like you just opened up a folder in your brain, but now it’s empty. And that doesn’t feel good. At least that’s the way it works for me. And if it works that way for you, that explains why you have a lot of very full folders in your brain.

Segmenting Your Desire for Deep Dives

Now, there are people who segment this, people who have learned to segment this. In fact, I encounter people like this all the time. They segment it into the thing that they do for a living. Sometimes it’s a job, sometimes it’s a career, sometimes it’s a calling. And there’s a whole podcast on that.

I find people like that very interesting. And maybe you’re one of them. And I apologize. I don’t mean to be offensive in when I say I’m fascinated, but also I can’t relate. When someone in their free time, off time, lifetime stays on the surface of everything, but then for their job they take pretty deep dives into things.

I wonder why they don’t take deep dives into other things. And you could say, “Well, Mark, because we don’t have the time for it.” And I would counter as I always do. No, you mean you don’t have the energy, which is fine because we’re still on the same page and in agreement as to why you don’t do that. You just don’t have the energy. You’re busy doing other stuff.

“Surface Dwellers” vs. Hidden Hobbies

But I find that if you have the capability and the desire to take these deep dives into knowledge in the way that I’m describing in which you say it’s not enough to know something on the surface or it’s not enough, God forbid, to use a buzzword. I want to know more about this. I want to know the background. I want to know what I’m saying when I say that buzzword. If you have that within you, it’s probably going to come out some other place. And I’ve encountered this in people that I think are just okay, they’re fully into their job or their career. And then it comes time for them to be on their off hours. You’re going to find that they have some hobby that they really, really know a lot about. And it doesn’t matter what the hobby is. It doesn’t matter what the flight of fancy or the excursion is that they’re that they’re doing that. It’s going to be something that they’re like, “Yeah, no, I know a lot about this. I get really deeply into this. I It It could be something like, you know, it could be something incredibly innocuous and yet they know the best pieces and parts to order online for this thing that they like or do or the place that they go or even this little sporty sport that they like to do, even hiking, what have you. They’re seriously seriously into it in a way that just will floor you. And I applaud that because it speaks to me.

And as I’m talking about this, I assume your brain is thinking, well, what do I do this with? Am I just a a work person that gets heavily involved things? Maybe I’m not a work person that gets heavily involved in things. Maybe I’ve been on the service a lot. Or maybe you’re thinking of a person that you know that you either work with or know personally that tends to be a surface person.

The Conversational Wall of a “Surface Person”

And you will find that conversations end very quickly with surface people.

It sounds like I’m talking about the surface dwellers and where all the people who live underground. I guess maybe in a way we are.

You’ll find that as soon as conversations get even slightly deep, they will make a comment and in a way it’s sort of a defensive comment. And I have a famous interaction with someone I know that anytime I would get remotely deep on something remotely, they would say, “Well, I don’t know about that.” And I would think, “Well, right, that’s what we’re fixing.” And no, I wouldn’t go into scholar mode. I wouldn’t get up on my soap box, and granted, those are things that are really easy for me to do. It would just be literally to say something more than a buzz word, and they would say, “I don’t know about that.” and that would be the end of the conversation because they didn’t want to know about that.

So, you will indeed find that these people won’t let you go that far. It’s kind of like it’s kind of like an elevator chat with someone. They know that the doors are going to open shortly, so they’re not going to get into anything deep. And that’s where the whole elevator pitch comes from, in which you can make your pitch within a certain amount of time, a very, very short amount of time.

Intellectual Stamina in the Age of AI Hallucinations

So, now that we’ve defined it as we usually do, let’s let’s talk about it. Let’s talk about let’s talk about you. Is this something you do? Do you tend to just stay on the surface of things because that’s good enough, or do you tend to fall down rabbit holes?

Are the things that you’re interested in the things that you go deeper on, or do you just go deeper on everything that allows you to? And with the LLMs that are out there with Google, with this advanced connection to knowledge that we now possess, it’s easy to do that. Now, it’s easy to start it, but even with LLMs and so forth, there’s a lot of hallucination going on. And if you don’t know what hallucination is, it’s when you talk to something like Jack GPT or the others and they tell you something with supreme confidence and you say, “No, wait, no, no, you made that up. You made that up. I know you made that up.”

And when there’s the chance of them hallucinating and making things up, it puts a lot more burden on your shoulders and requires a lot more energy to pursue knowledge. So, what do you think? Does this have to do with intellectual stamina? And that sounds fancy and highbrow, but is that what this has to do with? Does it have to do with your your mind’s ability to keep going on something for you to not be so tired? Does it have to do with a desire to learn? Does it have to do with a discomfort like me with only knowing a little bit about something?

To be clear, I am not faulting anyone who decides to just be surface dwelling on most things. That’s fine. Different personalities, different strokes, different folks, all that stuff. I would guess that you’re probably not one of those people. Are they Are they listening? Are they in the room? Oh, they’re not in the room with us. Okay. Yeah, I’m not a big fan of those people. Sorry. I just I’m not. And I know you’re probably not one of them because you don’t listen to podcasts, especially this one, if you just go, “Oh, yeah. I just want a little know a little surface.” Now, someone might say, and I don’t know who, “Well, Mark, this is only like a 10-minute thing. Just how deep can you get?” Well, okay, this podcast is only 10 minutes, but I do get deep, and I have references, and I refer books that are deeper, and I refer to other podcast episodes. So sometimes we’ll talk about something that will then connect up and link up with two, three, four, even five episodes. And we do have a panel, a dashboard if you will, of almost 300 episodes to draw from. So yeah, 10 minutes may seem like a surface, but it’s not.

The Big Question: Are Your Deep Dives Only for Your Job?

So what do you do now? Think about the stuff that you might be surface on. Think about the stuff that you go deep on. and think about why is it just jobreated stuff? Have you given yourself a license to go deep on stuff that’s only jobreated that only makes you money?

I think that’s the big question with this.

Well, as always, thanks for listening and take care of yourself.

(Music Outro) be happy. How to get there? Glad that you asked me. I think it’s different for everyone. Some of us need work, others need fun. Some of us need purpose to overcome. But try to do what you love when it’s said and done. Cuz there’s so many differences in each of us. Trust your gut. It can show you what you want. Living life every day, late at night, not okay. All I want and I pray. All I need are some better days.

Here are the questions I asked in this episode:

“Well, what do you mean combustion?”

“Am I just a a work person that gets heavily involved things?”

“Do you tend to just stay on the surface of things because that’s good enough, or do you tend to fall down rabbit holes?”

“Are the things that you’re interested in the things that you go deeper on, or do you just go deeper on everything that allows you to?”

“Does this have to do with intellectual stamina?”

“is that what this has to do with?”

“Does it have to do with your your mind’s ability to keep going on something for you to not be so tired?”

“Does it have to do with a desire to learn?”

“Does it have to do with a discomfort like me with only knowing a little bit about something?”

“Just how deep can you get?”

“So what do you do now?”

“is it just jobreated stuff?”

“Have you given yourself a license to go deep on stuff that’s only jobreated that only makes you money?”

I want to announce that my new book, my 10th, is out. It’s called because the fundamental psychological building blocks that enable you to or prevent you from accomplishing anything, everything, and nothing. Check it out on Amazon. It’s only $9.99.

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#Society #Philosophy #Business #Mental Health #Fitness #Im On #Author Mark Bradford #Entrepreneur

Surface Dwellers and the Pursuit of Knowledge

Alchemy For Life

published 2d ago

MP3•Episode home

It sounds like I’m talking about the surface dwellers and we’re all the people who live underground. Well, hey there. Welcome back.