Humankind has come a long way. Among all traits responsible for the path we have walked so far, knowledge is right on top. And there it stays.
There are a handful more things that helped us progress, evolve, improve, optimize, grow… but not all of them are traits. Money, for once, helped a great deal, specially in more recent times. We can say that nowadays knowledge goes hand-by-hand with money in terms of human progress. Be it for the good of for the bad.
If you take your mind into the game world (a good RPG, for example), couldn’t you be comparing knowledge to experience points and money to the rewards? That’s a big part of what moves you while you play. You want your character to acquire experience points as to evolve, level up, grow stronger. Also, you want rewards for your efforts. You enroll in missions or quests in order to receive that gold or that awesome item. And they go hand-by-hand. Gold buys you better equipment, that requires certain level of experience to use, so that you can beat that monster that will drop you more gold or a highly sought-after legendary item, allowing you to go and face an even more badass monster with great loot… Rinse repeat.
Let’s go back to the real world and focus on knowledge. What is knowledge? Knowledge has various definitions, and as with most things, we at True Life Game vow for personal customized concepts, based on popular and accepted definitions. We are sure knowledge is not a new word to you!
The Personal Quest for Knowledge
Everyone is spending their life in an endless quest for knowledge, even if unwarily, unconsciously or unwillingly. Most of it comes out of need.
You had the need to get to know how to read and write; how to count and multiply; the difference between a triangle and a square. School helped by providing you with the knowledge needed to overcome these basic personal needs. Even if you went to school unwillingly (we were all kids once!), now you probably look back and realize how useful it was. This type of knowledge can be highly competitive as it’s part of what defines you as a professional. It all comes down to what you specialize in, and in that quest for knowledge people thrive to be the best and make it to the leaderboards. Being highly knowledgeable in these basic needs/skills opens you doors to the best jobs and makes you stand out of the rest.
There are lots of things you need to learn, but in a normal situation there is virtually no one to provide you knowledge on it, so you acquire that knowledge by experimenting. How to run and jump, how to punch or to kiss, how to love and to reproduce. Unless you’re doing any of these professionally, there is no one to judge or rate you at a professional level. You are not competing with the world. You do not need to be the best of the best, only the best you can be – enough to survive your daily life and to be and/or make those around you happy and safe.
There’s always a wide and long road ahead of you on your quest for knowledge, be it if you are 8 or 80 years old. Each and every one of us are enrolled on a personal quest for knowledge. It’s our own quest in life. It is the reason for moving on. Ever heard that sentence “when you die all your life flashes before your eyes”?
Knowledge leads to experiences. Experiences provide knowledge. These are the fragments of life itself.
Global Quest for Knowledge
Humans, both personally and collectively, are knowledge-hungry.
Knowledge allowed Mankind to discover and use all ill-fated tools and technologies over History. Atomic bomb was born out of development of knowledge previously acquired. So have gunpowder, dynamite, oil… There are countless positive uses for every ill-seen piece of human achievement. The achievements, by themselves, were all milestones in the much needed human race for progress. What makes them something negative in the world is based on a factor other than knowledge: Money. And money is, mostly, driven by another human trait: Greed. It is seen in games and it is seen in real life.
Even so, both the negative and the positive products of knowledge, are still part of the personal and global quests for knowledge. We all make wrong choices based on wrong perspectives over a piece of knowledge. By learning from that mistake, we are rethinking and optimizing our personal knowledge base. It’s part of what makes us human. Just like it happens on a personal level, so it does at a global level. It just naturally needs more time, as the subject is much, much wider. Eventually we will start conserving fossil fuel. We are certain of it!
Every bit of History is made out of pieces of knowledge translated into collective experiences. And by living or deconstructing these experiences, were we able to embrace new areas of knowledge or rethink old ones. By collecting knowledge, humankind is living. And if we were to face our last breath tomorrow, what would flash before our collective eyes? What footprint would be left by Mankind?
Where do you think the global quest for knowledge is leading us? Be it a positive or a negative outcome, it could be called… The Mighty Quest for Knowledge.
