Book 267 - A Year of Magical Learning

Reflection Title: Knowledge Always Finds a Way!

Book – The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

Book Description:

The year is 1327. Benedictines in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective. His tools are the logic of Aristotle, the theology of Aquinas, the empirical insights of Roger Bacon — all sharpened to a glistening edge by wry humor and a ferocious curiosity. He collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and coded manuscripts, and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey, where “the most interesting things happen at night.”

Reflection:

I think it would be fair to say that I’m generally not a huge fan of fiction books, like at all! I’ve certainly tried my fair share of them on this journey, but I’ve yet to come across any that perfectly align to my value of trying to learn something new every day. I can’t quite figure out why fiction just doesn’t do it for me. For some reason, I just don’t get that spark of excitement or that rush of insight that I get from reading non-fiction and memoirs. Non-fiction and memoirs are chocked full of new knowledge for me to consume, process, and combine with other knowledge to spark creativity. I love learning and non-fiction satisfies my craving to express my learn something new every day desires. Fiction books, not so much. They are entertaining, but I’m yet to walk away after finishing a fiction book with something that I can really hold on to and keep pushing my purpose forward.

Ironically, my desire to even want to consume The Name of the Rose first originated from one of my favorite non-fiction books in The Black Swan. I discussed this in one of my Black Swan reflections (#191 – Umberto Eco’s Anti-Library). I had no idea who this Umberto Eco guy even was, but I loved the idea of the Anti-Library which is all the unread books that you want to consume. Immediately after learning of Umberto Eco’s ant-library in The Black Swan, I googled him to learn more about who this dude is. I discovered that Umberto Eco is an Italian author who is best known for his debut novel called The Name of the Rose which went on to sell over 50 million copies and is one of the most popular books of all time.

I thought, if Nassim Taleb (the author of the Black Swan) likes him, and 50 million people have bought his book, this fiction book just might be the right choice for me. So, I went to go find it on Amazon and saved The Name of the Rose to my own digital Anti-Library in hopes I would consume it someday. Upon finding and saving it, I discovered that this was an incredibly long fiction book and it scared me a little bit from diving right in. I figured I’d come back to it eventually…that was almost 2 years ago at this point.

After I recently quit my job, I had planned to take a month off before beginning my next adventure. I figured there is no better time than now to get this one checked off the list as I have a lot of additional free time currently. So, I dove in!

Here is what I found; I still don’t like fiction books!

I’m kidding, kind of. I did enjoy this one a lot more than the rest for what it is worth, but the learning was pretty abstract as usual so I will do my best here to leave something of value in the memory palace and for you all to consume.

I don’t want to spoil anything as this is a murder mystery style novel, but this whole book and plot revolves around the secrets of the library at the abbey in which is the setting for the majority of the novel. Without giving away anything in the plot, I’ll share that my biggest lesson I learned is a reminder that knowledge is meant to be shared, not hoarded.

Once that creative spark has been lit in our minds and we take the courageous step to write it down to share with others, you can never put that genie back in the bottle. History has been littered with examples of people trying to hoard and control distribution of knowledge to no avail. It is a fool’s errand.

Sharing knowledge with our fellow human beings is in a lot of ways our superpower. A part of our purpose as humans is to learn and share knowledge with other human beings to help keep pushing our species forward. Of course, not all that knowledge is valuable, but some of it is. The key to remember is that it is never up to you to decide what information deserves to be shared with the world and not. Your job is just to share and let the randomness of the universe do its job.

It may not even be in your lifetime that the knowledge you shared will find a home with someone else who will value it, share anyway! Good or bad, share it!

Don’t be a reservoir of knowledge and store it up to prevent it from use by the rest of the world. Be a channel in which knowledge can flow through and can be passed on to the next person to do the same. You never know what will happen once that knowledge has left your mind and entered this magical world.

Knowledge will always find a way toward its next step whether we like it or not. It is your choice then whether you want to spend your life embracing how the universe works or expending all of your energy fighting it. I know what I’m choosing.

Question: Are you a knowledge reservoir or a channel?

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Links:

What is The Year of Magical Learning? An Introduction

YOML Podcast Discussion - Coming Soon

YOML Bookstore - The Name of the Rose