Keep It Loose

Photo by Howard Paley

“It is our knowledge — the things we are sure of — that makes the world go wrong and keeps us from seeing and learning,” — Lincoln Steffens

We tend to treat our knowledge as personal property to be protected and defended. It is an ornament that allows us to rise in the pecking order. So this tendency to offend Eco’s library sensibility by focusing on the known is a human bias that extends to our mental operations. People don’t walk around with anti-résumés telling you what they have not studied or experienced (it’s the job of their competitors to do that), but it would be nice if they did. Just as we need to stand library logic on its head, we will work on standing knowledge itself on its head. — Maria Popova

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and do that. Because what the world needs are people who come alive.” — Howard Thurman

“Whenever a knight of the Grail tried to follow a path made by someone else, he went altogether astray. Where there is a way or path, it is someone else’s footsteps. Each of us has to find his own way. . . Nobody can give you a mythology.” ~ Joseph Campbell

What you think you know is less important than your willingness to learn. What inspires you and enlivens you is your path. Maria Popova wrote a piece on why your unread books are more important than your read ones. Knowing is…