You maximize the knowledge you have by sharing it. I mean, it’s not like it was your knowledge to begin with. The knowledge you do have is accumulated from other sources… and your role in ‘creating’ it is more ‘curating’, really – the data and information that passes through you is laced with past experiences, present exposures, and future hopes.
Well, I suppose if you receive knowledge and convert it by involving your entire being in taking it all in and letting it all loose, then it’ll definitely be seen as fresh. But there it is – it wouldn’t make any sense for you to keep the knowledge for yourself. All this knowledge ought to flow through you – you are not a dam to hold in all the water, nor are you a hard drive to contain all the knowledge.
You are not a hard drive, you are a node. You are a channel, a part of the endless river of data, information, and knowledge, and based on the traits of your being, you either muddy the waters or further purify them as they pass, but either way, it ought to flow. God forbid that you force stagnancy and let the waters flow out of you through other destructive means, beyond your control.
And don’t think that the flow is a trickle. Do not be deceived – we are in an age where knowledge has increased, so much so that even our youth are not spared by the great onslaught of data and information, advertising and manipulation, stimulating all of our senses. There used to be a time that we would say, that we’d be out of words. That we’d be speechless. Or we wouldn’t know what knowledge to share in certain situations. Now, it’s more like we’re so filled with memes, tweets, ‘reserves’ in thoughts and catchphrases that we don’t know the best thing to say at any given time.
It’s okay to control the quality of the flow you take in – or you can control the pressure and the amount of information that does come in. Same thing with controlling what comes out of you. You can choose to prioritize quality or quantity, or even both, if you could – but you really shouldn’t put what comes in or out as your top focus, more than just appreciating how you’ve been made by God.
As we have all been fearfully and wonderfully made, it also ought to be said that there is no other person in this world that God made who is EXACTLY like you in every aspect of your being. You’ll have people who look like you, sound like you – they’d pass as your ‘carbon copies’, as we would say, but no one will ever be 100% like you.
On that note, no one else could ever process information and data to convert it to knowledge just like you would. There’s another layer to what makes you different from everyone else. Sure, consider that by some freak accident another person who is exactly like you was brought to existence; the problem is, the chances that this person would go through life exactly the way you would are far less likely. Therefore, you’d have someone with the same physical attributes, but with totally different experiences.
I’ll say it again – Nobody filters and processes data and information and creates knowledge exactly the same way you would. And, okay – to keep it to yourself MAY be beneficial in the short term, but eventually you will have to share what you know, lest it come out in other ways beyond your desire, much less your control.
Enrich your knowledge by sharing it in your relationships. And in so doing, you enrich yourself. It may not necessarily be an immediately positive and pleasurable experience each and every time, but the important thing is that you set the knowledge free – surely, even these sorts of blessings would come back, pressed down, shaken, and overflowing.
I’m probably sharing all that because of what I read earlier today, from Proverbs 15 – it had a set of verses collected from all over the chapter which emphasized on two ideas – the importance of constantly collecting knowledge and sharing it, plus the critical need for all of us to surround ourselves with the right people and counsel to help us process the said knowledge. As you can see, I’ve been able to link the first idea to my (slight) obsession with productivity – you’ve read how I said that sharing knowledge is the best (translation: most time and resource efficient) use of the knowledge that we do have…
I guess I say sharing knowledge is best because this data and information has to stay in a constant state of motion, and in so doing, it continues to be refined, as it is passed and acted upon, spreading from one mind to many others.
With that said I think that counsel – which ideally ought to consist of older, more experienced people (translation: people who have processed more information than you have) – plays an important part in our sharing, just to add value to what we already have. In the process of sharing, or really passing data and information to good counsel, everyone involved in the exchange benefits.
There it is. You know you have good counsel when everyone benefits from the exchange of knowledge. If it’s only the ‘counsel’ who leaves satisfied after the exchange, then you’ve likely been taken advantage of. If you’re the one who feels good, with doubts that your ‘counsel’ feels the same way, then you’ve likely taken advantage of him or her. Well, these experiences are precious knowledge on their own, but they aren’t necessarily ideal experiences to have on a daily basis, lest we be flawed in our own processing, in our own discernment.
We don’t just share to teach, nor do we share just to unload. We don’t share just to clarify, nor do we share in expectation of having something shared back to us. It’s not one of these reasons that take precedence over the other… but the important thing, as I’ve said in the beginning, is to share.
In our sharing, we certainly clarify. And every bit of knowledge we do share brings us closer to counsel God prepares for us.
We’ll never deviate from that phrase we’ve had stamped to our heads since we were kids: Sharing is caring.
JB's Personal Brain Defragmenter 
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