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Is Knowledge Always Desired?

May 15, 2023

Philosophy, Society

change, ignorance, knowledge, philosophy, self-deception, society

“Increase of knowledge only discovered to me more clearly what a wretched outcast I was”, the creature in Frankenstein utters, summarizing one of the core themes in Mary Shelley’s novel. The meaning is inescapable for the hapless being: Knowledge is not always desired. The question is whether that could apply to us all and why.

Let me confess it right away: Knowledge is something I am nearly obsessed about. That is, I feel very stressed if I don’t know something, and much calmer if I do, even if it’s knowledge of something unpleasant. If someone asked me “There’s good news and bad news, do you prefer…” I’d interrupt them with “Oh, spit it out all together already!”

However, I also have enough life experience (a milder way of saying I’m becoming a grumpy old man) to know that this approach doesn’t necessarily apply to others. People like self-deception.

The truth is, we intuitively might think knowledge is always desired, we might even affirm so if asked, but things are more complex than that.

knowledge always desired
There are too many books and not enough time to read them (I’m sure you can relate), so, to begin with, there are practical considerations in limiting knowledge intake
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Expectations vs Reality, Writer-Style

April 17, 2023

Writing

book, creativity, fiction, literature, social masses, society, writing

So, you too want to “become a writer”, right? You’re in good company! You and another 5 billion people apparently want the same. But this, too, is a club where expectations and reality don’t quite match.

Inspiration for this post came when Alicia, a friend of the blog, shared with me a map that shows what is the dream job of people by location. As you have perhaps guessed it, people from Finland to Algeria and from India to Trinidad & Tobago answered that their dream job is writer. Other popular choices were “pilot” and “influencer” or “youtuber”.

As someone who has experience of… one and a half of those professions, I feel it’s important to talk a bit about the “expectations vs reality” factor of our choices.

The key takeaway here is, we are very often attracted to certain activities and we’d like to make money out of them. That we enjoy doing them is precisely the reason why we should never attempt to bring money into the picture – or, in any case, not so before we fully realize the repercussions of such an action.

expectations vs reality
“You are special, just like everybody else”
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Writing a University Thesis: or, Tales from the Academic Crypt

March 27, 2023

Criticism, Society

academia, criticism, mediocrity, society, writing

You probably think this post isn’t for you – unless you’re a student about to start writing a university thesis. But although in this post I indeed want to give some tips to students on their way to writing a Bachelor’s, Master’s, or even Doctoral thesis, there are important things we need to discuss about society and how our academic communities operate.

After all, much of what you experience in your everyday life is one way or another related to the academia. I’m not even referring to “knowledge” being born in the academia (I wish it were that simple). Rather, the people produced – that’s the right word – by the academia are your future employers and colleagues, mayors and decision-makers, and overall people you will have to deal with.

For those not familiar with me, I’ve spent 12 years at the university studying and teaching English literature. I’ve written a Bachelor’s thesis, a Master’s thesis, and a Doctoral thesis. I’ve seen the academia from the inside and let me tell you, the sausage metaphor applies.

Though I’ll structure the post around a way it would be most useful to a student – including what to expect, what to do, and what to avoid while writing a university thesis – I’ll add plenty of anecdotal details along the way that will make the post interesting to anyone.

Writing a University Thesis
University life involves learning when to talk and when to shut up. Writing a university thesis isn’t much different
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