Is all Knowledge Valuable?

Let us do a little exercise before we learn or rediscover what knowledge means. This exercise is straightforward, and I have practiced it with a few friends who have probably reconsidered being friends with me owing to my shenanigans.

Exercise

This exercise aims to know if we would have biases towards words because we know their true meanings. It probably does not make much sense, but please indulge me.

Step 1: Close your eyes and erase all prior meanings of the word “knowledge.” If you have done that, you are ready for the next step.

Step 2: If you were to describe the temperature of the word “knowledge” without prior knowledge, how would you describe its temperature? Would you say it is warm, hot, or cold? Please leave comments below, as I would love to know how many people my thoughts resonate with.

Thank you for participating; now, let’s get back to the meaning of knowledge!

Knowledge

According to the Oxford Dictionary, knowledge is simply the facts, information, and skills acquired through experience or education; it is the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.

Another meaning of the word is awareness, or familiarity, gained by experience of a fact or situation.

I have thought deeply about how we (as humans) have, over the years, chosen what knowledge we consider valuable and irrelevant. I may not be well versed in the etymology of knowledge and whether or not it affects how we quantify and classify knowledge. Still, I have randomly thought about things I learned as a child until adulthood and wondered if they are valuable.

I mean, think about it! What knowledge do you have that you haven’t yet figured out what exactly you need it for? It could be something as simple as tapping your finger on an object or the babbling of a toddler. The sound of raindrops clattering on a roof, the bizarre smell of creatures nobody else can smell but you (which is probably weird!), or even shooting rubber bands with your hands.

Now, let us consider those forms of knowledge generally accepted by all as valuable. These could include things like driving a car, making a meal, having good table manners, playing chess, and riding a horse. One would easily say that knowledge about these things would be valuable, probably because of their various applications.

This brings me to our next question to ponder upon

Is knowledge valuable because of its application?

If you knew how to write beautiful lyrics and were suddenly transported to a place where the mere thought of writing (no matter the subject) is a crime, would you say that knowledge is valuable?

If something as inappropriate as farting in public could fetch you a gold Olympic medal, would you say knowing how to fart is valuable? It sounds like a disconcerting thing to do and is rightly frowned upon, but isn’t that because we as a society have agreed that it is probably a type of knowledge best expressed in private? But then, can we say that societal and cultural values significantly influence the value of knowledge?

A younger version of myself would have probably argued that not all knowledge is valuable, but growing up and garnering all sorts of life experiences has taught me otherwise. When I think of specific skills or information I would have hastily dismissed as invaluable; I wonder if it is because I haven’t yet discovered how best to apply them.

To me, all forms of knowledge are like raw data or nascent information just waiting to be harnessed and applied for good or evil. Even the term valuable is subjective, as it can depend on culture and societal values. Knowledge is indeed dynamic.

All knowledge is valuable

One thing I learnt quite early is that misunderstandings are often avenues to sharing one’s deepest feelings about something or one’s grievances. This is why I am fascinated with human emotions, ranging from love, sadness, happiness, and anger.

I am also a big fan of animations, and I often find myself learning songs from them. However, the number of songs I learned from each one depends on my connection level while watching the movie. Watching animations as an adult makes me feel like a child and makes me appreciate the beauty of imagination. It helps me appreciate the talent, time, and energy poured into a project to create a masterpiece. How the expressions of these characters are often realistic, and how each song engenders different emotions when we sing them.

These songs I have learnt have never honestly had any form of application that would counter the saying that “no knowledge is a waste,” not until I became married.
One of my most memorable days with my husband is one of conflict. It sounds weird, but I learnt a huge lesson from it. I can barely remember what caused the misunderstanding, but I remember being picked up by my husband and the awkward silence that enveloped us while he drove us home from work. Times like this make every mile longer than it should be.

When we got home, we spoke less frequently than we used to, and we became engulfed in the chores we had chosen to do. I remember making a meal and cleaning up the dishes I had used in the preparation while my husband was sorting our dried clothes in our room.

My ears were already accustomed to the sound of boiling food and the occasional scraping and clanging of my spoon and plates. We were used to having long conversations about work, playing games, or even blanketed silence borne out of satiation with each other’s presence.

We would have attacked these respective chores as a team rather than individually. I knew we would make up before bedtime, as we made it an unspoken rule always to do so, but when our emotions were high, the brief isolation from each other helped bring those emotions back to base.

Exasperated by the feeling of aloofness, I began to sing songs from my favourite animations. I sang songs from Frozen, “Let It Go”, and “In Summer” This extended into Tangled, followed by Beauty and the Beast and Lion King ( which always made me think of my siblings and some of my relatives)
In a little time, I began to feel better and happier. I sang more songs and mimicked each character as my voice crescended.

Cooking became playful, and my spatula made an excellent impression as a microphone. I sang songs from Little Mermaid and tried hard to nail Sebastian’s Caribbean accent.
Unbeknownst to me, my husband had entered the kitchen and was amused by the whole thing. He stood there watching and smiling while I tried to hit the highest notes from “Part of That World,” when I caught wind of his presence, I started laughing.

We just stood there laughing, and it was the most wholesome moment. “I came to ask what I did to deserve all this singing, ” he told me with a grin, and we laughed about it again.

He recognized songs from certain animations because he had seen them as a young boy, and when I harped about how I used to sing a lot as a child whilst doing chores and how much I loved animations, he seemed genuinely interested to hear more. We spoke about each one I mentioned, and he was drawn into helping with making the meal. Much later, we folded the clothes together.

We apologised to each other after dinner as we were too engulfed in our long conversations about the changes in animation—the beauty of going from 2D effects to 3D and, quite recently, 4D. We talked about the songs and praised the composers and the performers, as they not only created good music but also beautiful memories for children.

We made up correctly after we owned to our faults, apologising for where we had erred each other. We decided to watch an animation much later, as we were slightly sidelined by a more intense romantic reconciliation involving body parts. We created an unspoken rule of waiting for each other to see an animation together, especially if one of us perceived it as interesting.

I never knew Disney animations would be useful in conflict resolutions in marriage, and I wouldn’t have guessed that songs would have helped, but somehow, that knowledge was not a waste.
I would have said in a heartbeat that knowing these songs was irrelevant and may not even have classified it as valuable knowledge prior to that experience, but now I am more open-minded, and my answers would be much different.

Please let me know if you have had such an experience that made you realise that something deemed irrelevant could be helpful to you.

My answer to the exercise above

I think that the word knowledge would be cold if it had a temperature purely because of the way it sounds

Feedback

1. Have you ever had an experience like mine? How did you feel about It?
2. Please share any special skills that you have that would be deemed irrelevant by most.