Information overload.

[Everything]

Knowledge is free, and people fight to keep it that way. In our day and age, information has become a well used instrument of evil. There is so much knowledge to act upon, that everyone is occupied.

 

I was born, and most of my energies were emmediatly directed towards gathering more knowledge. Going to school was not enough, they made me read books, many books. Soon I got addicted to knowledge, craved for more and more. Now I go trough life by knowing more and more, each day. I know so much that acting upon my knowledge seems pointless or requires extreme efforts to acomplish. I know so much, that I feel I can never conquer, ever again... I know so much that death would be a pleasure compared to my everyday failures.

 

The follower of knowledge learns as much as he can every day;

The follower of the Way forgets as much as he can every day.

 

By attrition he reaches a state of inaction

Wherein he does nothing, but nothing remains undone.

 

To conquer the world, accomplish nothing;

If you must accomplish something,

The world remains beyond conquest.

 

The ancients did not seek to rule people with knowledge,

But to help them become natural.

 

It is difficult for knowledgeable people to become natural;

So to use law to control a nation weakens the nation,

But to use nature to control a nation strengthens the nation.

 

Discard the programs of nature, creating new rules based on knowledge alone. We have become robots who will soon bump into eachother and will keep doing so untill our laws have become one with nature.

 

Our actions are based on knowledge and requires alot of force and energy. When nature is at the core of your actions, your actions flow naturaly, thus require less effort. This way even the weak can grow, by participating in more activity. The leaders can teach more effectively aswell.

Edited December 9, 2010 by Everything

[trailmaker]

Knowledge is free, and people fight to keep it that way. In our day and age, information has become a well used instrument of evil. There is so much knowledge to act upon, that everyone is occupied.

 

I was born, and most of my energies were emmediatly directed towards gathering more knowledge. Going to school was not enough, they made me read books, many books. Soon I got addicted to knowledge, craved for more and more. Now I go trough life by knowing more and more, each day. I know so much that acting upon my knowledge seems pointless or requires extreme efforts to acomplish. I know so much, that I feel I can never conquer, ever again... I know so much that death would be a pleasure compared to my everyday failures.

 

The follower of knowledge learns as much as he can every day;

The follower of the Way forgets as much as he can every day.

 

By attrition he reaches a state of inaction

Wherein he does nothing, but nothing remains undone.

 

 

 

 

To conquer the world, accomplish nothing;

If you must accomplish something,

The world remains beyond conquest.

 

 

Nice post/essay - the inflationary 'knowledge' spiral...

 

The ancients did not seek to rule people with knowledge,

But to help them become natural.

 

It is difficult for knowledgeable people to become natural;

So to use law to control a nation weakens the nation,

But to use nature to control a nation strengthens the nation.

 

Discard the programs of nature, creating new rules based on knowledge alone. We have become robots who will soon bump into eachother and will keep doing so untill our laws have become one with nature.

 

Our actions are based on knowledge and requires alot of force and energy. When nature is at the core of your actions, your actions flow naturaly, thus require less effort. This way even the weak can grow, by participating in more activity. The leaders can teach more effectively aswell.

[sifusufi]

Still baffles my why so much knowledge is still shrouded in secrecy

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

If you change your name from 'everything' to 'nothing' you might feel a little less overwhelmed.

[Everything]

If you change your name from 'everything' to 'nothing' you might feel a little less overwhelmed.

Yeah I do

nothing wisdom

everything love

doesn't make sense huh?

Is it possible to change names?

Edited December 10, 2010 by Everything

[Alfred E]

If you change your name from 'everything' to 'nothing' you might feel a little less overwhelmed.

 

Excellent Suggestion !

 

It isn't the walking up the mountain that makes a person sweat - it is looking down from the top and thinking of the walk back down...

[TheSongsofDistantEarth]

Yeah I do

nothing wisdom

everything love

doesn't make sense huh?

Is it possible to change names?

 

 

Yes, it is. Several here have done so recently.

[DalTheJigsaw123]

Great thread!

This is why one should meditate on nothing and think of meditation as just being.

[exorcist_1699]

Knowledge is said to be something annoying and beyond our control only because our life is short ,our mental ability recedes following the passing days... And our mind, comparing to the amount and varieties of knowledge we need to grasp ,is too limited.

 

Whether we can keep knowledge , information that is processed to become something meaningful to us, under our control is really proportional to how powerful a mind we get.

 

Information is somehow related to energy.

 

Unfortunately , it is not only the volume of knowledge that depress us, but its varieties that make most individual minds look trivial : people who are good at dealing with graphical images may not be good at handling logical relations; people who can handle a tool well to measure things or build up something may not be good at manipulate abstract mathematical symbols.

 

All these "defects" in human mental abilities reflect how our shen ( spirit ) in its degenerated form, its " post -heavenly" form , is being entangled , suffering . An all-round mind can't be accomplished not only because of division of labour ; our alienation from our human essence roots not only in our social status.

 

Yet a Buddha Heart /Taoist Shen ( meta-Mind) is said to be free from any limitations and sufferings . A cure to any kinds of foolishness . Why ? Because it is boundless , not suffering from any deficiency of energy and power of understanding ; It understands everything because a Mind comes out from absolute emptiness does accommodate anything and their endless ways of expressions ; so any forms of knowledge, not necessarily those come from the intelligence producing on this earth , but those come from other places in this cosmos, are not beyond Its grasp .

Edited December 23, 2010 by exorcist_1699

[NeiChuan]

Great thread!

This is why one should meditate on nothing and think of meditation as just being.

 

Yeah I thoroughly enjoyed this haha

[Birch]

My main "issue" with information overload is the toxicity of some of it.

 

Add to that, the notion that some information that would be very useful to know for lots of things (like health for example) isn't being shared a whole lot, or is being voluntarily altered (I believe the term is "spun") or withheld entirely. I think that's what annoys me the most.

[zerostao]

Great thread!

This is why one should meditate on nothing and think of meditation as just being.

i agree. for me meditation does not have to have a reason.maybe that is why i enjoy it so much?

[Gerard]

Simplicity and contentment with yourself as a wandering spirit. This should be enough. Also enjoy your cup of tea and spiritual practice.