
Ask HN: How can I be happy, knowing I can never learn or read everything online? - gitgud
How do you deal with the fact that you can never learn even a tiny fraction of what the world has to offer?<p>I&#x27;m either paralysed with decision  of what to spend time on or frantically trying to read as much as I can....
======
blairbeckwith
I've come back to this article a number of times over the years whenever I get
this feeling: [https://www.npr.org/2011/04/18/135508305/the-sad-
beautiful-f...](https://www.npr.org/2011/04/18/135508305/the-sad-beautiful-
fact-that-were-all-going-to-miss-almost-everything)

The end provides a decent summary of the article, and how I've tried to think
about things since I first read it:

"It's sad, but it's also ... great, really. Imagine if you'd seen everything
good, or if you knew about everything good. Imagine if you really got to all
the recordings and books and movies you're "supposed to see." Imagine you got
through everybody's list, until everything you hadn't read didn't really need
reading. That would imply that all the cultural value the world has managed to
produce since a glob of primordial ooze first picked up a violin is so tiny
and insignificant that a single human being can gobble all of it in one
lifetime. That would make us failures, I think.

If "well-read" means "not missing anything," then nobody has a chance. If
"well-read" means "making a genuine effort to explore thoughtfully," then yes,
we can all be well-read. But what we've seen is always going to be a very
small cup dipped out of a very big ocean, and turning your back on the ocean
to stare into the cup can't change that."

~~~
lihaciudaniel
Also imagine the possible scenario where some humans don't die and they live
noble life's of acquiring technical knowledge in one subject (immortality I
mean) or just google AGI being fed all books scanned by google. A human can do
that, but humans is it worth it. Even if you manage to get a large picture of
our work , you can always zoom it infinitely in some areas while others also
are constantly changing.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
Think about your life. With some good luck, you may live 100 years. That is
approximately 1% of human civilization (~10,000 years) which is around 5% of
the time there have been humans humans (~200,000 years) which is around 0.1%
of the time there have been mammals (~200,000,000 years) which is around 5% of
the time that earth has been around( 4.5 billion years) which is around 33% of
the time the universe has been around.

In this regard, I like this quote from Perelandra by CS Lewis: "Be comforted,
small immortals. You are not the voice that all things utter, nor is there
eternal silence in the places where you cannot come."

Take joy in your life now, what you learn now, and your significance to those
around. Don't read and learn because you feel it necessary, read and learn
because it genuinely interests you.

~~~
gitgud
Appreciate that response, that's kind of a humbling exercise. Of everyone who
ever existed, we are but a speck of dust in a storm.

Also, finding that genuine interest is something I feel I lost over the years.
After studying at University, we were forced to study in order to graduate.
Even subjects we had no passion for. This mentality of learning without
passion is a bad habit I learned and need to unlearn...

------
saltcured
I look at the desire to learn and absorb as no different than suffocation,
thirst, hunger, and lust. They are pace-making signals from deep in our bodies
and minds to keep us moving and living.

How can we be happy realizing we can never breathe, drink, eat, love, or learn
it all...? By admitting that such an infantile goal is foolish and clumsy.
Those are useful motivating urges, but they are not goals.

~~~
gitgud
That's a great way to look at it, learning as the _moviation_ not the end
goal. I feel I'm doing the opposite currently, trying to find new ways of
developing and learning faster...

~~~
shoo
Maybe a question to ask is why do you want to learn or develop faster? For its
own sake, or for some other goal?

One perspective (that I don't completely agree with) is that consuming
information is an input, and is wasted effort until, perhaps at some later
date, you use that information to produce some output.

~~~
gitgud
Very true, I think learning is intangible in many ways as the outputs are hard
to link to the learned inputs.

Maybe I need to redefine a goal based on what I'm learning in order to target
an output... Kind of like back-propagation in neural networks?

------
yesenadam
_How can I be happy, knowing I can never learn or read everything online?_

Why on earth do you think you would be happy if you read everything online?
Let alone learn everything "the world has to offer"? (Maybe those would be
terrible, even if they were possible. It doesn't sound like you've tried to
imagine it.)

Maybe I misunderstand you. There does seem to be something very wrong with
your thinking on this subject though. You could try to find out what that is.
(Asking on here is a step towards that!) There seem a few false assumptions
buried in your questions. Have you done much reading to learn about yourself,
self-help, wisdom literature etc, or is it..just facts/non-fiction that you
want to read?

Personally, it's _very_ frustrating to me when I think that in my teens, there
was nowhere to get every movie, book, music ever for free, instantly, as there
is now. My life would've been so different. Better? I don't know. But I'm _so_
grateful to be able to hear/read about a book/movie/scientific paper/recording
and download it pretty much instantly. It's _incredible_. I didn't dream that
would ever be possible. I lived on a farm outside a country town and I could
get virtually nothing of anything. Well, I got a few things, and I really
valued them!! I wonder about kids growing up today with _everything_
available, and how they can value any one thing....it really changes
everything.

~~~
yesenadam
What I forgot to say explicitly, is - _be grateful_. Make a list of the things
you are grateful for. Spend more time feeling grateful for the things you have
in your life, less or none feeling bad--- torturing yourself---over the things
you don't have.

 _Any man who does not think that what he has is more than ample, is an
unhappy man, even if he is master of the whole world._ \- Epicurus

~~~
gitgud
That's a good point you made above, now that all information is at our finger
tips, it's hard to value any single piece...

But we should value and take happiness in the fact that we _can_ access any
information so easily... That notion relaxes me, thank you for taking the time
to write it.

~~~
yesenadam
:-) You're welcome. Good luck!

I have to go now to read the 5,000+ books and papers on my computer... Most of
which I end up deleting to make space for more...

------
tedyoung
This is hard. Especially for folks (like you and me) who have wide and varied
interests, and are able to learn from a wide variety of sources. The
overwhelming amount of information now available makes this much harder than
it was 35+ years ago where the limits were what information was available
physically (libraries, bookstores).

I don't have any quick solutions, because I don't think there are any. I've
found it important to at least try and focus on one or two topics per day and
keep those in mind (sometimes a physical sticky note helps!), and actively
saying "no" to reading or looking at something that isn't the topic of the
day.

Acceptance that there's no way you'll learn it all is hard, but I've found can
become easier in time with mindfulness and meditation techniques (but again,
this isn't a fix, let alone a quick fix).

Finally, I encourage you to _do_ and _create_ in addition to absorbing
knowledge. Try and spend some time on sharing your knowledge and creations as
that can be energetic and may help you find the areas to further focus on.

~~~
gitgud
Thank you, that was a very empathetic response. You're right in the fact that,
applying what you learn and teaching what you learn is a great way to deal
with this.

I haven't tried mindfulness or meditation, but am interested in learning a
spiritual way of acceptance.

------
a-saleh
I had similar fear, in my case, stemming from the fact that I really wanted to
be on the edge of so many new technologies, and I felt I am falling behind.

What helped me was to focus on things I already know and help me "Get the job
done", especially if I managed to help somebody else in process :-)

I.e. I realy would like to dabble in running hadoop cluster and do large-scale
data-processing. Despite the fact it has nothing to do with my current day-to-
day work.

But last time I needed to process something, I managed to make do with the
unix usual suspects such as cat, sed and awk and I got the result and it was
fine :-)

~~~
gitgud
This is some more good advice. Here's my summary of your comment:

 _Try and solve problems with what you know first... As there 's always a
newer method to learn._

------
malux85
You need to elevate your intellect to metacognition. Learn how to learn. Learn
the difference between generalisation and domain knowledge. Domain knowledge
can always be looked up in reference material (though memorising as much as
you can is good too because deeper domain knowledge will give you a greater
perceptual experience).

I dont know if there's a canonical source on how to do this, but I have found
studying mathematics and pure logic continues to give me a toolset I can use
to decompose reality into atomic constituents.

Accept you wont learn it all, you are limited in time and space, and use your
knowledge for good, try and do the greatest amount of good for the greatest
number of people you can.

------
ambivalents
Get offline. Seriously. Go out for a walk, talk to some people. Lie in the
grass and marvel at the sky, trees around you. Why do you want to learn all
that you can online without any practical application for it?

~~~
gitgud
In my defence, I do go outside, run, surf and ride around with friends...
exercise does make me happy.

I just feel like I could be learning more, but at the same time I feel it's a
futile effort as more and more information is being produced all the time...

~~~
ambivalents
Fair enough! I get into the modes you describe too and find it quite
depressing. To the point where I've reasoned that the only real and true thing
I _can_ do is accept the fact that I won't know everything. The consolation is
that there's still a beautiful world all around me, and some wonderful people.
And sometimes...it's enough :)

~~~
gitgud
Thanks for sharing. And that's a very good way to look at it. Accepting that
fact is hard for me, and not something that will happen overnight... But I can
take happiness in the beauty of the world and all the good people I know,
including thoughtful commenters like you!

------
8bitsrule
"A teacup cannot contain the ocean."

So take a chair at the smorgasbord, grab a plate, and pick what looks best.

I'll never have the time or talent for a lot of things, but those who do _need
the audience_.

~~~
gitgud
Some nice quotes, but sorry does that last one mean that those who take the
time to learn things want to be centre of attention? Or that they deserve
attention for their efforts?

------
sethammons
Realize that there is more content created per day than can be consumed. You
can't drink the ocean, especially with all that ice melting into it.

I just mentioned this in another thread. Make a backlog (I have two, one
personal, one professional). Keep it sorted with the top things you want to do
or learn about in each. Set goals around what it means to have learned that
thing and strive to reach that goal. I'd recommend prioritizing based on
utility and entertainment.

~~~
gitgud
Interesting, thank you. I haven't made any priority lists based on what I want
to learn, great idea.

------
julienreszka
Turns out most of what's posted online isn't very pleasant or useful anyways.

So you should be happy knowing that you can never learn or read everything
online.

------
nf05papsjfVbc
Given that many decisions and choices are irreversible, life is indeed a
journey that takes you somewhere. However, at any point in time, you can only
be in one place. This is just how it is. There is no good or bad about this
fact by itself. It is just reality. Happiness does strongly depend on whether
one accepts reality.

~~~
gitgud
Wow that's a profound statement that hit me pretty hard.

The internet is able to transfer you to any piece of information instantly,
but you can only consume information at one time. So the concept still holds.

 _There is no good or bad about this fact by itself. It is just reality.
Happiness does strongly depend on whether one accepts reality._

Thank you for your comment

------
meiraleal
Keep reading. After some years, you'll build enough knowledge to feel "wise",
or at least wiser than most people today as nobody reads that much.

------
dgarud
Remember the times you were happy, reflect on what made you happy. Happiness
is something that comes from inside, not by putting something in - even
information.

~~~
gitgud
I like this, thanks for your input

------
abledon
Don't try and live life by dissecting and analyzing, cutting up things into
smaller and smaller pieces. embrace things wholly.

Like love, you can't analyze your partner down to their sub-atomic particles,
you can't dissect them to fully enjoy them. you have to embrace them wholly.
Embrace life wholly to enjoy it or you'll forever be cursed chasing only one
dimension of life.

------
idDriven
I am also a collector of information. From this I attempt to create a deeper
understanding. To identify and spread important information within this time
and to future times is i believe the most valuable. To this end I personally
am writing books. Sometimes I slack off and just enjoy learning for its own
sake, just remember the worst enemy is entropy.

~~~
lihaciudaniel
We will not experience entropy in our lifetime. Even idleness/awareness states
do not cause entropy in the brain where studies show that we sort our
knowledge during this time. But yes entropy is inevitable.

------
namaljayathunga
I admire your effort of trying to learn something. As my religion (Buddhism)
our knowledge goes to the next life as a born talent after our death. even if
you can't believe that you can learn something and teach that another one. I
suggest you learn anything you like without trying to learn everything and
happy with that knowledge.

------
quickthrower2
Think of yourself as an ant, a part of a larger colony that does important
work but only ever part of the total work. The real value is not in knowing
everything but going deep in one thing. Even if that thing is ‘only’ web
development it is valuable to society.

~~~
gitgud
I appreciate your comment, but thinking of myself as an ant actually makes me
feel helpless and kind of meaningless. Although it's accurate, this notion it
doesn't exactly make me happy.

It is kind of calming to see yourself contributing to the bigger picture
though...

------
ddingus
It is a wide open field. That is a serious upside.

What it means is any of us can become the absolute best at something we care
about.

Seek that, then go nail it.

------
erkanerol
I am glad to hear I am not alone.

------
cvaidya1986
Know that, knowing which, one knows all.

