Knowing it all

So I guess people regularly go through these times of feeling utterly swamped by the world. And the shouldn’t and shoulds and this thing and that. And then we pick up a filter (I personally like the whisky glass filter) and block out all that is just too much to cope with and plow on.

In my discovery about early humans with the kids, an interesting point was made by one of the articles. That early homo sapien sapien knew more than ‘we’ do. Because early man had to know it all. How to defend, feed, heal, protect, build, create, design. All of it, they carried and used regularly. In our modern times we have specific healers, protectors, people to feed us and so on. So we don’t have to know how to ‘make fire’ we just flick a switch and our homes can be warmed and our food cooked. And from my uni lecture I realised that with this modernity we don’t even think about whether the electricity in our homes will be working or not. It is the rare time we walk in the door and the fridge has gone off. It’s not a worry which has to occupy space in our minds. We I guess use that space to worry about other things higher on maslows heirachy of needs.

So as I’m having one of these ‘how the fuck can we know it all, and respond to all’ moments. I wonder can someone just filter it down for us??? And I guess that’s just it. We can’t. Or rather we can, but then we have to choose our filters!!! Bah!!! What!!? More choices!?…. my brain just died…

All the research out there about ‘the most important, strategy, concept, learning tool, blah blah blah blah blah, that you need in your classroom now!… and perhaps I am wearing more hats than I used to, and feeling overwhelmed that I gotta know about this teaching thing, and how to cram all of this knowledge into their brains and make it stick! As well as all the other shit I have to do.

But still, if there is just SO MUCH information (and misinformation) out there, how can we not feel overwhelmed that we don’t know it all, or even know one part actually really well!!?? We’re constantly told what we should know, or be able to grasp (maybe cause im in a teacher student loop?). Yet somehow there is just always more!

It’s like there are a million ‘right’ ways to parent, and yet none of them are actually right, there is always some new research that says… and how did things get so complicated, or perhaps detailed is the right word… there is so much detail now! We don’t just know that xyz thing is bad or good but we can actually tell you why in a detailed way.

So, how can all of it be simpler? How can we just know what we know, and learn and add more. But not be overwhelmed by the ocean of information.

I guess as per my reading for uni this week. Just take some solitude time, calm the fuck down, listen to the inner normal person who isn’t hysterical that her brain doesn’t have a 50TB capacity and enough ram to execute all that knowledge with precision. And just chill out! Sort the really good info you need for now. And let those other gems of knowledge fall to someone else.

Sometimes I envy early homo sapien sapien, even though they may have been able to hold more in their brains (working memory?? Memory is a crazy thing we don’t even understand yet, so how do they knew they held more than us? the article didn’t elaborate!) there was at least an end to it, there was a point where u had learned all that was known to them at the time. That seems like a satisfying thing to achieve.