Study as a Path to Liberation

Reflections of a former terrible student

When someone decides to seriously study a new subject, they almost always experience a kind of intellectual anxiety. It is an understandable phenomenon. As the desire to know grows, so does the awareness of one’s own ignorance. The more you see, the more you notice what still remains hidden. “I know that I know nothing” — Socrates.

At that moment a problem appears that did not exist before: the limitation of time. It is no longer enough to want to learn; it becomes necessary to discern what deserves depth and what can remain in the realm of general information. Intellectual maturity consists precisely in this: knowing how far one needs to go and where it is wise to stop.

Looking at reality, one notices that there are, broadly speaking, three kinds of scholars. The first is the shallow generalist: knows a little about many things, but rarely reaches the essence of any of them. The second is the narrow specialist: masters a few subjects deeply, sacrificing breadth in favor of depth. The third combines both qualities: possesses vast culture and, at the same time, deep knowledge of the subjects studied. It is the rarest kind, because it demands not only intelligence, but discipline, time and an extraordinary capacity to order one’s own thinking.

The problem is that this third ideal, admirable as it is, becomes practically unattainable within the average lifespan of a human being, above all for those who have genuine curiosity about many areas of knowledge. An honest look at reality is enough to see that there is not enough time to absorb everything humanity has already produced, let alone keep up with what it keeps producing.

This is where the first great intellectual challenge appears: delimitation. Drawing a line is not an act of resignation, but of prudence. Without that delimitation, the student risks living permanently haunted by a sense of insufficiency, as if always behind in the face of the immensity of available knowledge. Clearly defined goals do not impoverish the intellectual search; on the contrary, they give it direction and meaning.

There is, however, a second problem just as important. Humanity has produced and keeps producing a colossal amount of content on practically every imaginable subject. Yet quantity has never been a synonym for quality. A large part of that production is born of naivety, lack of rigor, insufficient information or, worse still, the replacement of facts by opinions dressed up as knowledge. Not every author deserves trust. Not every work deserves attention.

That is why two virtues become indispensable to the student: the capacity to delimit one’s own field of investigation and the capacity to carefully select one’s sources. Before starting a journey of study, set aside some time to determine what you really need to learn and what level of mastery is necessary to reach your goal. When you reach it, consider the goal met. Otherwise, study turns into an endless search, incapable of producing any legitimate feeling of completion.

Likewise, set aside time to identify authors, teachers and thinkers who have withstood the judgment of time and whose reputation was built on intellectual seriousness. Prefer those who show prudence when evaluating their predecessors, who know the tradition they speak from and who have the honesty to clearly distinguish between what they know, what they believe and what they merely suppose. In matters of study, choosing the right guides is often more important than choosing the right subjects.

Everyone talks about the importance of having a solid base of knowledge, but few really understand what that means. When you study a subject and feel you are not understanding anything, or when you open a book and within the first pages find it excessively difficult or tedious, maybe the problem is neither the subject nor the book. Often, some earlier foundation is missing that would make the experience intelligible.

Try studying Differential and Integral Calculus without first mastering basic algebra. I lived that experience and I can say with confidence: it does not work. The intellect does not advance by arbitrary leaps. Knowledge has a structure, and each step presupposes the previous ones.

It took me a long time to understand the importance of logic, language, basic mathematics, epistemology, the scientific method, statistics and the history of ideas. For years I thought: “What am I ever going to need this for?”. And, in a certain sense, I was right. In the job market and in conventional everyday life, much of that knowledge seems dispensable. In most professions, it is perfectly possible to live without it.

But there is a difference between what is useful for earning a living and what is necessary for understanding life. For an existence guided by self-knowledge and the comprehension of reality, those studies are indispensable foundations. They are instruments of intellectual liberation.

It is worth asking yourself: does what I am studying have a relationship with who I am, or only with where I work?? Is it tied to my formation as a human being, or only to the next professional goal I want to reach?

That is a hard decision. What will you learn to develop as a person? And what will you learn to acquire practical skills, increase your economic usefulness and become more valued in the job market? In the end, both dimensions matter. I believe the mistake lies in completely sacrificing one of them in favor of the other.

I would like to close with a reflection..

How many people in your circle still carry the informal title of “healers”, keepers of knowledge passed down from generation to generation? How many will exist a hundred years from now? After answering in your head, leave the house, walk two blocks and look at the reality around you. You will most likely find a drugstore. They are everywhere: on corners, avenues, shopping centers and residential neighborhoods, a few minutes away for most of the population.

This is not about rejecting the advances of medicine nor idealizing the past. The question is another: we are becoming more and more dependent on systems we understand less and less. We have lost touch with traditions, local knowledge and forms of understanding that for centuries were part of human experience.

I have the impression that we are forming individuals ever more specialized in operating mechanisms and less capable of understanding themselves. Knowledge grows in volume, but wisdom seems to become rarer.

I know.. this text started out talking about knowledge and ended with my indignation :/ . Maybe because, deep down, knowledge is not just accumulating information, but understanding the place we occupy in the world and the direction we are walking in.

Finally, I remember a sentence I once heard from a cardiologist who has since passed away:

“Only knowledge frees man.” — E.C.

Knowledge vs. Intelligence vs. Wisdom

Knowledge is the set of information, concepts and facts a person has acquired through study, observation or experience. It is what someone knows. A doctor knows anatomy, physiology and pharmacology because they studied those disciplines; a mechanic knows how engines work because they learned their structure and operation. Knowledge mainly answers the question: “what is it?”.

Intelligence is the capacity to understand, relate, analyze and use knowledge to solve problems or deal with new situations. Two people may have the same amount of knowledge, yet show different levels of intelligence when applying it. A student who learns the formulas of physics has knowledge; one who can use them to solve a problem never seen before shows intelligence. Intelligence answers the question: “how do I use what I know?”.

Wisdom is the capacity to correctly judge the value, the limits and the consequences of knowledge and intelligence in real life. It is a virtue tied to prudence, discernment and the understanding of human nature. An investor may have knowledge of economics and the intelligence to identify financial opportunities, but only wisdom will let them notice when they already have enough, when the risk is excessive or when the pursuit of money is sacrificing more important aspects of life. Wisdom answers the question: “is it worth doing, and what will the consequences be?”.

In simple terms, knowledge is knowing that fire burns; intelligence is understanding how to produce, control or use fire; wisdom is knowing when to light it, when to put it out and when to keep away from it. Knowledge accumulates information, intelligence turns information into solutions, and wisdom steers those solutions toward truly good and fitting ends.

This distinction appears, in different formulations, in authors such as Aristotle, who differentiated science, craft and prudence, and also in modern thinkers of epistemology and cognitive psychology. In every serious tradition of thought, the conclusion is similar: it is possible to have a lot of knowledge without being intelligent, to be intelligent without being wise, but it is impossible to be truly wise without some degree of knowledge and intelligence. Wisdom does not replace the two; it orders them.

Being a polymath

A polymath is someone whose mind transcends the artificial borders between fields of knowledge, identifying the principles, patterns and structures that connect distinct areas into a unified understanding of reality. Rather than merely accumulating information, the polymath synthesizes, reconstructs and integrates knowledge, turning learning into systemic perception. Their cognition does not operate linearly or in compartments, but as a dynamic network of connections, in which science, philosophy, psychology, politics, finance and human experience reveal different expressions of the same fundamental truths.