Why Knowledge is NOT Power
I learned a new word a few days back:
“fauxcellarm”
It is the false sensation that your cell phone is vibrating when of course it is not. But there is no ring tone, there is no phone vibration and no one’s calling. This sensation, there is an actual word for it. And I thought I was the only one sensing (or sometimes even hearing) my phone ring.
This in turn reminded me of a post I wrote some time back, about rats.
You’d think that you are the only one, till you find out that there is tribe, a group or even a whole community of people who feel exactly like you do! You won’t know this until you reach out and do different things or do things differently.
And the first rule to learn more, to do more, is always to question the rule itself. Not to be a nonconformist but to understand the rule better (and make a better one if possible).
So when people tell me that Knowledge is Power, I had to ‘test’ this out, had to question this supposed gem of wisdom.
Knowledge is Power, really?
OK, so learning about fauxcellarm has not armed me with untold powers (I can not even pronounce the word). But more to the point, I actually do not think knowledge is power.
Yes, knowledge does not empower you.
It.
Does.
Not.
Lack of knowledge, on the other hand, can and actually does cripple you though.
And this is a fine distinction here.
It’s not that knowledge is power, it’s that lack of a few critical pieces of information can be devastating to your enterprise.
So, as a safeguard, you dive in and try to gather in as much information about a specific project as you possibly can. So far, so good. But then information overload kicks in. This is inevitable unless you take action. Because action will give you feedback. And then that feedback information will serve as the critical piece of information. And so on.
This is 80/20 principle revisited, folks. A very small set of knowledge results in massive success.
The world belongs to the bold, make no mistake. So whatever you learn, apply it, test it, launch an experiment, do something with it.
A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan executed next week. George S Patton
If any piece of information is not directly applicable to your project, it is worthless. In fact, it is not worthless, it is actually harmful, leading to such dreaded conditions as analysis paralysis.
In fact, what many people would say is laziness, is in fact one form or the other of information overload (so, how many people do you know who ‘keep studying’ to avoid ‘finding work’ etc?).
I wish you all the best, and now I gotta run because I think I hear my phone ringing.
