Mike, You said:

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Pretty important point about "no matter what you know there is always more to know". That type of thinking is very-much honored in the corporate
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No it's not (honored, that is). It just gets you labeled as a trouble maker. Those folks are very satisfied with themselves. In fact, if they catch on that you think that way, you scare the hell out of them. Especially if they've got a pigeonhole that you refuse to fit . . .

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(learn more) than what people in 1900 did over a course of many months...yet we are far less satisfied with our lives...
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I don't think you can really know that. I agree that we are less satisfied. We're bombarded with information(?) everyday, promulgated by people whose intent it is to get our attention. Nothing works like tragedy.

No tragedy today? Well, just look at how you've failed compared to [fill in the blank with anything from money to weight loss.]

They're in the discontent business.

Change the channel.

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And to make it worse most of the information we accumulate is useless...it is useless now, it will be useless five years from now and it will be useless 50 years from now.
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Hmmm. Who'da thunk my Mama, who never even had an attic, much less insulation in it, would be able to tell me exactly what to do to get the stuff off my skin (and soothe the crazy-making itch, instantly) when I fell into it . . .

Sigh.

You need to pour a nice, tall glass of something definitely mind altering, and declare to God "Yaaaassss Lawd! It's me, and Ah'm thinkin' and learnin' again!"

You can then either drink the stuff or pour it out. Validation is the immediate goal of that exercise.

Self-validation.

Ok. Here comes the rant.

You DID know I'd write, didn't you?

Of COURSE you did!

I think that the "useless knowledge" feeling comes from the fact that we simply haven't found the vehicle through which we can express that knowledge, in a manner that benefits both us and humankind. And please know that when knowledge is expressed (not facts, necessarily) it may be in a form that is something different than the thing (or things) originally learned.

I believe that the dichotomy is not in "constantly learning" versus "applying what we learn."

Rather, it is that we have not yet discovered what our spirits *want* us to be doing with what we've learned to contribute to ourselves and to humanity, to justify "our takin' up space and wastin' good air."

Put differently, we haven't realized (or maybe haven't accepted) that we each contribute something remarkable! That we each, in fact, have the power to change the entire %$##$@ universe TODAY!

Think about that.

You're a part of the universe. If you disappear from the face of the earth, the ENTIRE PICTURE IS CHANGED!

Talk about a mind-blowing thought! And it matters very little how far the ripples you make go.

Whether or not Joe Blow in east Hell-is-burg knows about you is of no consequence.

You did ripple.

You ARE rippling.

(One result of yo' ripplin' behind is that I'm sittin' here writin' this stuff, when I need to be . . . )

And when you quit ripplin,' the universe - MY universe is changed.

Now then.

Satisfaction will come when we know ourselves enough, trust ourselves enough, and believe in ourselves enough to express who and what we are. (It doesn't hurt anything to want to make money in the process, BTW. But that is but one measure . . .)

[A Story about the value of learning]
I took a leave of absence to take care of my mother while she was about the business of dying. Her brother, Uncle Waverly, loved her dearly, and came to be with her (at my house, complete with ailing wife, prescriptions that were written in another state) until we buried Mama.

Mama was 72. Uncle Waverly had to be at least 85 at the time.

One day I came downstairs and found him sitting motionless at the dining room table, pencil poised in mid-air, and a pensive-vacant-gone! expression on his face. (With old folks, you always think they mighta died on you, and I sho' nuff didn't need a dead one at the dining room table while a dying one was upstairs!)

"Whatcha doin' Unk?" I asked. (Please God! Let him answer!)

He "came back in the world" and said "Oh, Ah'm jes workin' out a problem or two here."

'Bout that time I noticed the mathematics textbook open on the table in front of him, and a notebook full of math symbols, in which he'd been writing.

"You takin' a class, Unk?"

"Naw, Chile" he said. Ah jes' works dese out when Ah gits too sad. It kinda relaxes mah mind."

He had absolutely no interest in "applying" his learning, and even less chance of getting a job based on what he was teaching himself. Dude got to 6th grade, as far as I can tell.

Yet he was solving first year college mathematics problems while his favorite sister was on the floor above dying, because, as he said "It kinda relaxes mah mind."

There is no useless knowledge.

NONE!

That we haven't discovered a way to apply what we know to achieve what we want, or that nobody celebrates the fact that we know stuff is entirely irrelevant.

Eternal learning is not a futile pursuit, and there is no useless knowledge.

'Sides, nobody c'n really stop learning. (I ain't sure 'bout dead people, having not had the experience, yet.)

Pick something that satisfies your soul. Five will get you ten that all the "useless" stuff you know will infuse that something with an appeal so special, that you'll smile everytime you remember that you created it.

And you just might make some money.

Marye