The Burden Of Knowing
If I'm not mistaken, it was presumably Einstein who mentioned this popular saying on imagination being more important than knowledge for reasons I can't really pinpoint right now but will come back to later.
Just a few days ago, a friend and I were discussing about this aspect of knowledge that when you know something, you can't unknow it, which then becomes a burden of sorts, as you'll have to live with it and may also weigh heavy on your conscience if the right action is not taken derived off of that knowledge.
I think there's a subjective aspect also here with knowledge, given the definition itself can vary depending on circumstance.
It's not much of a big deal if I can't unknow that based on my bodily system, being jacked up like a bodybuilder is an impossibility. Actually quite the opposite, I'm liberated to remove that unrealistic aspiration from my view of what's achievable for my body.
Whereas trying to unknow for example the suffering of others once you've witnessed it or say environmental consequences of certain lifestyle choices, that's where it gets hard to justify and knowledge becomes genuinely burdensome as you can't unsee systemic injustice once you understand how it operates. The weight of that knowledge demands something from you, even if it's just the discomfort of cognitive dissonance when you choose inaction.
Liberation and constraint
For myself, what really sparked me nodding as if I've discovered some secret truth on what was said is because I more so actually relate it to this mismatch between knowledge and wisdom. It's usually overlooked that wisdom can only be developed via lived experiences and all the knowledge that we acquire is just a pointer toward understanding, not understanding itself.
Whatever my parent warn me of, I'll still have to experience it first hand before the lesson sticks and gets integrated. This is the tragedy and perhaps the necessity of each generation, we inherit knowledge but must earn wisdom independently.
On the flip side, I genuinely sometimes feel like I need to know less of the state of the world, be it projected or actual, as it gets in the way of imagination being able to exercise its full capacity.
I contend that the premise for Einstein labelling imagination as more important than knowledge is two fold.
First is knowledge is perceived as a limitation. Isn't one limited by what they know, in the sense that our existing frameworks and facts create boundaries around what seems possible or even thinkable?
Second, imagination is generative in a way knowledge cannot be, so much so that funnily enough, people who changed the world were usually those who ignored the 'current state of affairs' entirely.
I wish there's an easy way for knowledge to serve as the fuel for imagination and not water that extinguishes it.
At this point in time, anchoring one's imagination to acquired knowledge is a healthy middle ground against the cynical belief that because things are this way, they must stay this way. We're all exploring what reality is and can become.
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