There’s something else I learned from that writing coach on the Internet.
Education is overrated.
That’s the opposite of everything I’ve been taught as a doctor, student of science, parent, and citizen.
Knowledge is power, and with great power comes great, you know.
To get ahead in this life and be a worthy human being, you should study, think, and always be hungry to learn more.
All of which has been true.
Until this point in human history.
Our brains are full
We are not suffering from a knowledge deficit.
4K videos on YouTube show every place, country, occupation, celebrity, or hobby in ultra-high resolution. The entire Internet is at our disposal, now including AI, on our smartphones, on demand, 24/7.
When we’re ill, we are not suffering from a knowledge deficiency.
We know a lot about the roots of chronic illness. Yes, there will always be new discoveries at the cutting edge of molecular and subatomic medical science.
But we already know that the following are toxic to human health:
- obesity
- high fructose corn syrup
- ultra-processed foods
- social isolation
- chronic stress
- regular alcohol/tobacco use
- lack of exercise
If these were fixed, something like 80% of chronic diseases would vanish.
None of us can claim ignorance about health basics.
What’s missing is Action
Plato and Aristotle were wrong: knowledge does not automatically lead to the right action. People don’t “of course” do the right thing once they realize what that is.
Doing is separate from knowing, and from what I’ve seen, NOT acting on health and fitness knowledge comes from 2 things: noise and fear.
If there’s TOO DOGGONE MUCH DATA to process, it ceases to have meaning. It’s no longer information; it becomes noise.
When people are overwhelmed by family tragedy, financial hardship, work stress, poor health, and an endless barrage of corporate and political marketing, they shut down. The entire outside world becomes noise to be tuned out.
And if everything is noise, then there’s no clear path to getting healthier or better. Snake oil or penicillin — it’s all the same.
The other problem is fear.
Catastrophizing is a word that I never used to say, but now say daily: the anxiety perspective that turns everything into a worst-case scenario. If I get the disease, I could die; if I get the preventive shot, I might get an awful side effect; if I take a treatment, I might be choosing the wrong treatment and get kidney failure, etc.
The paralysis of fear is a kind of noise problem: everything leads to doom. Again, there’s no clear path to getting healthier or better.
Either way, positive action gets stifled.
Nothing changes. And if nothing changes, you’re actually losing ground as the world passes you by.
Which brings us back to the writing coach
On Day 1, the coach said something profound:
You can educate, but the number of educators on the Internet is legion. People don’t need more INFORMATION, especially in the age of prompting AI for answers. What they need are EXPERIENCES.
In other words, Action.
People need to stop quivering like the donkey stuck between 2 hay bales, unsure of which way to get a mouthful, and slowly starving.
They need to take that first step.
Then another, and another, until they eat.
The noise isn’t real. The internal debate about the noise isn’t real, though it feels incredibly significant to the brain.
What’s really real is putting one hoof in front of the other on the hard ground and getting a mouthful of hay.
And the starvation that happens if no movement occurs… that’s really real, too.
Action item
Think about a health action that you need to take consistently. Don’t overthink it; it’s not a trick question. Think about something that you’re pretty sure would do you good and that you’ve been putting off for a while.
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