Knowledge without understanding
I heard on the news today that monasteries here in Sweden are seeing increased interest from young people. They are curious about the monastery life and seeking answers to whether there's more to their own lives than what they currently experience.
Why this trend?
Who knows, but it wouldn't be too far-fetched a guess to say it's at least to some extent related to today's connected society. Notifications, likes, comments, sharing, tracking everything, endless entertainment at your fingertips 24/7, always updated...
Swipe and you'll have the answer to anything served. But that's not quite true, is it?
No search engine or AI model will be able to answer the questions that are most important on a personal level: the existential ones.
Who am I? What's my calling in life? How do I fit into all this?
It's like the closer we get to obtaining superficial information, the further we drift from the deeper answers.
When the Swedish monk Björn Natthiko Lindeblad was giving talks, he often quoted Winnie the Pooh:
Piglet: "Owl knows so much!"
Pooh: "Yes, and that's probably why he understands so little."
We've become owls. Knowing without understanding.
Whoo-Whoo-Whooooo am I?