Tell me, what do you know?
On what the internet can’t tell you
Tell me, what do you know? That the sky is blue, how it feels to receive a smile from a stranger, how a slippery sidewalk feels on a rainy day? You know a lot more as well: capitals of random countries, a nickname for mitochondria, the many ways the world is slowly collapsing. The latter list — the things that we know without experiencing — grows constantly, incessantly, more and more with each passing year and new technological advancement. As a result, “mystery has gone out of the world.”
The endless tap of knowledge was exciting once, like Instagram filters and text messages once were. As a neurotic kid, I relished being able to look up facts about leatherback turtles (the largest of all living turtles!) and learning new things constantly by clicking around Wikipedia. It was easy to stumble down a rabbit hole and understand things that I hadn’t even considered a few minutes before. It felt like the answers to any question could be found with just a few clicks.
But this only worked for certain types of questions. As I grew older, I tried to find the knowledge that would make social interactions less anxiety-producing. If I theoretically had access to the sum of all human understanding, couldn’t it answer every difficult question? But the internet failed to answer the questions I really wanted answers to, like “does everyone think I’m annoying?” and “did anyone notice how sweaty my palms were?”
There were answers online for these types of questions, but not ones that were satisfactory. No one could tell me the answers to the specificities of my life. That was ultimately up to me to figure out. No amount of reading would offer the knowledge that socializing, getting embarrassed, and learning from the embarrassment would. I would Google these things, get zero useful answers, and would be forced to endure uncomfortable situations until I learned how to deal with them.
What I did read (self-help, motivational quotes, etc.) created moments of apparent clarity that ended up being illusory. A book told me to repeatedly call people by their name, but that would make everyone uncomfortable. A blog post would offer a single rule to apply to interactions with everyone, but everyone I met was so different. These ideas framed as facts would make me feel like I understood people around me, but I didn’t understand anything at all. Yet, the confidence that they spoke with was alluring, as was the idea that all of life could be distilled to lists of facts explained clearly.
Through the advancement of technology, we’ve never had more access to facts, statements, and opinions about the world around us. They’re found in the same places and forms, alongside each other with little to differentiate them. My YouTube algorithm serves me videos about the animals of the Great Plains alongside video essays about the collapse of culture. The mysteries of nature, which once required an arduous journey into the unknown, are now as digestible as a video essay of a man at a desk. When every mystery of the world becomes so easily accessible, everything feels less worthy of curiosity. What a pity.
It’s curiosity that forces one to ask questions about what is being consumed and look outside of what’s in front of them to find truth. It’s curiosity that helps to uncover the mystery and unknown in things that are already known. Even if I learn about the bison of the Great Plains — its history and lifestyle — curiosity tells me that it would feel completely different to see these animals tower above me, trudging through the grass in front of me. More than a YouTube video could tell me.
I try my best. I go to the American Museum of Natural History. I stand in front of a diorama of a massive taxidermied bison. I gaze into its blank, shiny eye.
Tell me, what do you know? it asks.
💧 Drops of the Week 💧
PLAYLIST - february mixtape - my friend em makes sick playlists every month!
POEM - “My Education” by Diane Seuss - When I needed Keats, I got him. I read enough / to get the point, then tuned in to his ghost.
lovely, one of the best things i've read this year
maybe the knowledge is the friends we made along the way 🥲