Ask HN: How can I be happy, knowing I can never learn or read everything online? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How can I be happy, knowing I can never learn or read everything online?

38 pointsgitgud39 comments

How do you deal with the fact that you can never learn even a tiny fraction of what the world has to offer?

I'm either paralysed with decision of what to spend time on or frantically trying to read as much as I can....

I've come back to this article a number of times over the years whenever I get this feeling: https://www.npr.org/2011/04/18/135508305/the-sad-beautiful-f...

The end provides a decent summary of the article, and how I've tried to think about things since I first read it:

"It's sad, but it's also ... great, really. Imagine if you'd seen everything good, or if you knew about everything good. Imagine if you really got to all the recordings and books and movies you're "supposed to see." Imagine you got through everybody's list, until everything you hadn't read didn't really need reading. That would imply that all the cultural value the world has managed to produce since a glob of primordial ooze first picked up a violin is so tiny and insignificant that a single human being can gobble all of it in one lifetime. That would make us failures, I think.

If "well-read" means "not missing anything," then nobody has a chance. If "well-read" means "making a genuine effort to explore thoughtfully," then yes, we can all be well-read. But what we've seen is always going to be a very small cup dipped out of a very big ocean, and turning your back on the ocean to stare into the cup can't change that."

Also imagine the possible scenario where some humans don't die and they live noble life's of acquiring technical knowledge in one subject (immortality I mean) or just google AGI being fed all books scanned by google. A human can do that, but humans is it worth it. Even if you manage to get a large picture of our work , you can always zoom it infinitely in some areas while others also are constantly changing.

Think about your life. With some good luck, you may live 100 years. That is approximately 1% of human civilization (~10,000 years) which is around 5% of the time there have been humans humans (~200,000 years) which is around 0.1% of the time there have been mammals (~200,000,000 years) which is around 5% of the time that earth has been around( 4.5 billion years) which is around 33% of the time the universe has been around.

In this regard, I like this quote from Perelandra by CS Lewis: "Be comforted, small immortals. You are not the voice that all things utter, nor is there eternal silence in the places where you cannot come."

Take joy in your life now, what you learn now, and your significance to those around. Don't read and learn because you feel it necessary, read and learn because it genuinely interests you.

Appreciate that response, that's kind of a humbling exercise. Of everyone who ever existed, we are but a speck of dust in a storm.

Also, finding that genuine interest is something I feel I lost over the years. After studying at University, we were forced to study in order to graduate. Even subjects we had no passion for. This mentality of learning without passion is a bad habit I learned and need to unlearn...

I look at the desire to learn and absorb as no different than suffocation, thirst, hunger, and lust. They are pace-making signals from deep in our bodies and minds to keep us moving and living.

How can we be happy realizing we can never breathe, drink, eat, love, or learn it all...? By admitting that such an infantile goal is foolish and clumsy. Those are useful motivating urges, but they are not goals.

That's a great way to look at it, learning as the moviation not the end goal. I feel I'm doing the opposite currently, trying to find new ways of developing and learning faster...

Maybe a question to ask is why do you want to learn or develop faster? For its own sake, or for some other goal?

One perspective (that I don't completely agree with) is that consuming information is an input, and is wasted effort until, perhaps at some later date, you use that information to produce some output.

Very true, I think learning is intangible in many ways as the outputs are hard to link to the learned inputs.

Maybe I need to redefine a goal based on what I'm learning in order to target an output... Kind of like back-propagation in neural networks?

How can I be happy, knowing I can never learn or read everything online?

Why on earth do you think you would be happy if you read everything online? Let alone learn everything "the world has to offer"? (Maybe those would be terrible, even if they were possible. It doesn't sound like you've tried to imagine it.)

Maybe I misunderstand you. There does seem to be something very wrong with your thinking on this subject though. You could try to find out what that is. (Asking on here is a step towards that!) There seem a few false assumptions buried in your questions. Have you done much reading to learn about yourself, self-help, wisdom literature etc, or is it..just facts/non-fiction that you want to read?

Personally, it's very frustrating to me when I think that in my teens, there was nowhere to get every movie, book, music ever for free, instantly, as there is now. My life would've been so different. Better? I don't know. But I'm so grateful to be able to hear/read about a book/movie/scientific paper/recording and download it pretty much instantly. It's incredible. I didn't dream that would ever be possible. I lived on a farm outside a country town and I could get virtually nothing of anything. Well, I got a few things, and I really valued them!! I wonder about kids growing up today with everything available, and how they can value any one thing....it really changes everything.

What I forgot to say explicitly, is - be grateful. Make a list of the things you are grateful for. Spend more time feeling grateful for the things you have in your life, less or none feeling bad--- torturing yourself---over the things you don't have.

Any man who does not think that what he has is more than ample, is an unhappy man, even if he is master of the whole world. - Epicurus

That's a good point you made above, now that all information is at our finger tips, it's hard to value any single piece...

But we should value and take happiness in the fact that we can access any information so easily... That notion relaxes me, thank you for taking the time to write it.

:-) You're welcome. Good luck!

I have to go now to read the 5,000+ books and papers on my computer... Most of which I end up deleting to make space for more...

This is hard. Especially for folks (like you and me) who have wide and varied interests, and are able to learn from a wide variety of sources. The overwhelming amount of information now available makes this much harder than it was 35+ years ago where the limits were what information was available physically (libraries, bookstores).

I don't have any quick solutions, because I don't think there are any. I've found it important to at least try and focus on one or two topics per day and keep those in mind (sometimes a physical sticky note helps!), and actively saying "no" to reading or looking at something that isn't the topic of the day.

Acceptance that there's no way you'll learn it all is hard, but I've found can become easier in time with mindfulness and meditation techniques (but again, this isn't a fix, let alone a quick fix).

Finally, I encourage you to _do_ and _create_ in addition to absorbing knowledge. Try and spend some time on sharing your knowledge and creations as that can be energetic and may help you find the areas to further focus on.

Thank you, that was a very empathetic response. You're right in the fact that, applying what you learn and teaching what you learn is a great way to deal with this.

I haven't tried mindfulness or meditation, but am interested in learning a spiritual way of acceptance.

You need to elevate your intellect to metacognition. Learn how to learn. Learn the difference between generalisation and domain knowledge. Domain knowledge can always be looked up in reference material (though memorising as much as you can is good too because deeper domain knowledge will give you a greater perceptual experience).

I dont know if there's a canonical source on how to do this, but I have found studying mathematics and pure logic continues to give me a toolset I can use to decompose reality into atomic constituents.

Accept you wont learn it all, you are limited in time and space, and use your knowledge for good, try and do the greatest amount of good for the greatest number of people you can.

I had similar fear, in my case, stemming from the fact that I really wanted to be on the edge of so many new technologies, and I felt I am falling behind.

What helped me was to focus on things I already know and help me "Get the job done", especially if I managed to help somebody else in process :-)

I.e. I realy would like to dabble in running hadoop cluster and do large-scale data-processing. Despite the fact it has nothing to do with my current day-to-day work.

But last time I needed to process something, I managed to make do with the unix usual suspects such as cat, sed and awk and I got the result and it was fine :-)

This is some more good advice. Here's my summary of your comment:

Try and solve problems with what you know first... As there's always a newer method to learn.

Get offline. Seriously. Go out for a walk, talk to some people. Lie in the grass and marvel at the sky, trees around you. Why do you want to learn all that you can online without any practical application for it?

In my defence, I do go outside, run, surf and ride around with friends... exercise does make me happy.

I just feel like I could be learning more, but at the same time I feel it's a futile effort as more and more information is being produced all the time...

Fair enough! I get into the modes you describe too and find it quite depressing. To the point where I've reasoned that the only real and true thing I can do is accept the fact that I won't know everything. The consolation is that there's still a beautiful world all around me, and some wonderful people. And sometimes...it's enough :)

Thanks for sharing. And that's a very good way to look at it. Accepting that fact is hard for me, and not something that will happen overnight... But I can take happiness in the beauty of the world and all the good people I know, including thoughtful commenters like you!

"A teacup cannot contain the ocean."

So take a chair at the smorgasbord, grab a plate, and pick what looks best.

I'll never have the time or talent for a lot of things, but those who do need the audience.

Some nice quotes, but sorry does that last one mean that those who take the time to learn things want to be centre of attention? Or that they deserve attention for their efforts?

Realize that there is more content created per day than can be consumed. You can't drink the ocean, especially with all that ice melting into it.

I just mentioned this in another thread. Make a backlog (I have two, one personal, one professional). Keep it sorted with the top things you want to do or learn about in each. Set goals around what it means to have learned that thing and strive to reach that goal. I'd recommend prioritizing based on utility and entertainment.

Interesting, thank you. I haven't made any priority lists based on what I want to learn, great idea.

Turns out most of what's posted online isn't very pleasant or useful anyways.

So you should be happy knowing that you can never learn or read everything online.

Given that many decisions and choices are irreversible, life is indeed a journey that takes you somewhere. However, at any point in time, you can only be in one place. This is just how it is. There is no good or bad about this fact by itself. It is just reality. Happiness does strongly depend on whether one accepts reality.

Wow that's a profound statement that hit me pretty hard.

The internet is able to transfer you to any piece of information instantly, but you can only consume information at one time. So the concept still holds.

There is no good or bad about this fact by itself. It is just reality. Happiness does strongly depend on whether one accepts reality.

Thank you for your comment

Remember the times you were happy, reflect on what made you happy. Happiness is something that comes from inside, not by putting something in - even information.

I like this, thanks for your input

Keep reading. After some years, you'll build enough knowledge to feel "wise", or at least wiser than most people today as nobody reads that much.

Don't try and live life by dissecting and analyzing, cutting up things into smaller and smaller pieces. embrace things wholly.

Like love, you can't analyze your partner down to their sub-atomic particles, you can't dissect them to fully enjoy them. you have to embrace them wholly. Embrace life wholly to enjoy it or you'll forever be cursed chasing only one dimension of life.

I am also a collector of information. From this I attempt to create a deeper understanding. To identify and spread important information within this time and to future times is i believe the most valuable. To this end I personally am writing books. Sometimes I slack off and just enjoy learning for its own sake, just remember the worst enemy is entropy.

We will not experience entropy in our lifetime. Even idleness/awareness states do not cause entropy in the brain where studies show that we sort our knowledge during this time. But yes entropy is inevitable.

I admire your effort of trying to learn something. As my religion (Buddhism) our knowledge goes to the next life as a born talent after our death. even if you can't believe that you can learn something and teach that another one. I suggest you learn anything you like without trying to learn everything and happy with that knowledge.

Think of yourself as an ant, a part of a larger colony that does important work but only ever part of the total work. The real value is not in knowing everything but going deep in one thing. Even if that thing is ‘only’ web development it is valuable to society.

I appreciate your comment, but thinking of myself as an ant actually makes me feel helpless and kind of meaningless. Although it's accurate, this notion it doesn't exactly make me happy.

It is kind of calming to see yourself contributing to the bigger picture though...

It is a wide open field. That is a serious upside.

What it means is any of us can become the absolute best at something we care about.

Seek that, then go nail it.

I am glad to hear I am not alone.

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