Be the Change no. 14

“Knowledge is less important than directed action.”

Be the Change.

Most of us like to believe that we are so much smarter than everyone else as if being intelligent prevents us from doing the wrong thing and making poor choices. That is totally untrue and one of the key talking points I try to drive home whenever someone says that other people don’t get whatever point they’re trying to make by calling into question their intelligence.

Intelligence does not make you a moral person. Intelligence does not make you a good person. Intelligence does not make you a free person. You can know a lot of things and still be immoral, evil, and enslaved. There is no study I have read that links intelligence with any of these human conditions BUT I am happy to find those studies so you can send them my way.

There is a lot of value put into knowledge and learning things for the sake of learning them. Every child needs to have so many years of whatever subject in government school, private schools, colleges, and universities BUT they are never asked to apply that knowledge, that learning to their lives. So, what’s the point of knowing a lot of things and never acting upon those things?

What do I say? “Your beliefs are your actions. What you say is just what you think.” And we have a society of thinkers that do nothing. We have a society that know a lot of things that do not move the needle in the direction of freedom. And you can see it every day you look at social media. You can hear it when you go out in public places. You can even hear it when folks come over to hang out. Folks love to concern themselves with things that are truly not important to their overall well being.

Folks prefer distractions to doing. I have another middle schooler in the house right now. I seem to get rid of one and then the next just fills that void. And one thing I have noticed about a lot of middle schoolers is how easily they get bored. They just do not know what to do with their time. They have a lot of time and no direction. And when you suggest action that is meaningful like building something, going outside, working with dad, reading a book, they do not appreciate those suggestions. And I think folks hit that stage of mental development and never mature out of it. They want to be entertained BUT they don’t want to be in charge of providing the entertainment. They want someone to turn the crank and the dancing to occur for them. They know a lot of things BUT they can’t apply those things to entertain themselves.

Folks are worn out from all the information. It gets a bit tedious if you try to keep up with the news and entertainment and sports and gossip and work and life. It gets exhausting. I find myself about this time of year saying that I can’t learn another thing about something I am trying to figure out BUT I work through that every year now because I have to keep learning new things and applying the things I already know to my life. I like to work on solving my problems and there is always a problem to be solved around the plantation.

Whether it’s thinking up new ways to generate food, store food, renew resources, and improve designs, I have something new to fix and improve on the property. I am constantly learning from behavioral science and psychological studies. I am listening to doctors that make sense about health and wellness. I am listening to ways to control my life and create new systems. I am always looking forward from what I have done in the past. It isn’t a knowledge problem. It isn’t an intelligence problem. It’s a problem of action or boredom.

#ThinkBetter #BeBetter #NoGodsNoMasters #MyBodyMyChoice #MakeYourselfGreatAgain #BeTheChange