Dear Federico:

My experience with knowing may have a similarity to yours. Let me know if it does:

I too no longer trust the sources of information in my past. The most influential and abundant source of information for me was my mother, and I no longer trust, thankfully, her to be a source of accurate information. One piece of information, of knowing, she taught me was that I am worthless. Therefore, thankfully, I no longer believe it to be accurate information.

Another source of information for me is marketing/ social conventions. For example, the information I learned is that financial wealth brings happiness-forever-after and financial worth equals human worth. Again, thankfully, I no longer believe it to be accurate information.

Evaluating old information/ knowing and unlearning what is incorrect is necessary to learning and knowing what is accurate. In other words: peeling off what is untrue makes it possible for us to see what is true.

anita

Dear Federico:

By knowing less and less, or knowing nothing (in the title of your thread), you definitely didn’t mean what I expressed in my first post to you.

I think that a key sentence to what you mean is in your post today: “I have been down too many blind alleys regarding spirituality, faith, ‘gut feelings’, following passions, blah blah blah and now my brain is tired of trying to find meaning and never succeeding.”-

I think that you suffer from overload, excess amount of information of the subjective kind: spirituality, faith, gut feelings, passions, the items you mentioned in the sentence I quoted.

You wrote: “everything at all times is purely subjective”- the items you mentioned are subjective, spirituality for one: is there a god, reincarnation, heaven, paradise earth and so on- some believe others don’t. But there are items that are objective: planet earth, the oceans, the trees, nature, life and death.

In your original post you wrote: “Maybe there’s a point we reach when the process is reversed? Perhaps it’s possible to actually know stuff as you get older. Does anyone know?”-

When you suffer an overload, an excess of subjective information and your brain is tired and rejects it all, it may be the time to apply the concept of a “beginner’s mind”- the brain of the baby or young child, seeing things as if for the first time. Look at things from the beginning, before the excess started accumulating. A Beginner’s Mind is the way to “actually know stuff as you get older.”

anita

Dear Federico:

You are welcome.

1. You wrote: “Any object we understand to exist may not even be there unless it’s being observed”- you are familiar with the question: “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

My answer: no it does not make a sound because it takes two for the sound to take place: one to cause it and the other to perceive it (see, hear and/or feel the vibration). But the tree exists regardless, and it fell, regardless of anyone having perceived it, or not.

2. You wrote: “All material is made up of atoms, atoms which are essentially empty space.” – correct. We didn’t know it but science investigated and proved it, and now we know. Just like people didn’t know the earth was round and now we know. Science makes it possible for us to know more and more.

When observing and learning about life and the world, I am at peace with the following truth: I cannot know everything, it is impossible for me to know everything, not even close. There is very little of all that is that is possible for me to know. I am okay with that. And here is the key: the “little” that is possible for me to know is a whole lot, enough to keep me occupied for the rest of my life.

3. You wrote: “I’m afraid I’m unable to shake off a severe Catholic upbringing… me wandering down dead ends to find some deeper meaning to life… I’m unable to truly open my mind for fear of something I can’t even identify… It’s like I’m a cardboard cut-out in this world that revolves without me.”-

This is a powerful share. I wonder what about your Catholic upbringing was “severe”- what fear did it stimulate in you, what distress..?

The feeling of disconnect, isolation, separation from “this world” is the reason for your over-thinking and searching for other world, for the world in-between-the atoms, outside what we are able to perceive with our five senses, isn’t it?

Can you identify the origin of that disconnect, aloneness/ loneliness: in your childhood perhaps?

anita

2.

Dear Federico:

In your original post you wrote: “The smartest I ever was would certainly have been at the moment of birth. From the first breath the process of unlearning began to unfold”-

This statement cannot possibly be true. When you were born you knew nothing. Then you learned, a whole lot: neuropathways forming in your brain as you learned many, many thousands of new things every month, language and relating to people, and so much more.

Problem is, a  lot of what you learned was not true,  but you learned it nonetheless.

To improve one’s life it is important to unlearn the untrue things we learned and learn what is true.

There are forests and there are trees. I am observing them as I type this (I live in a forest area). If you trusted me, you would believe that forests and trees exist; you would take my word for it. I suppose you have to trust a source of information in order to trust the information.

Maybe the crisis you have is a crisis of trust.

anita