Your lust for knowledge needs no cure. (The reminder all generalists need)

What history's greatest Thinkers all have in common.

I’m writing this to you with a clear mind, after many internal battles.

There were several topics I wanted to write about in this week’s letter. They were running around in my head in circles, gnashing their teeth at one another like the hungry, gaping mouth of the ouroboros.

I’m pulling up a chair next to me. I’m not at a desk, but I want you to sit here with me as if I was. I want you to visualize sitting across a desk, or a coffee table, or even a couch, from me. I have a coffee ready, actually—a cold brew, spiked with a dollop of cream. No sugar. Strange to have in cold weather, but comforting when I don’t want to wake up my roommate with the sound of my espresso machine.

You can brew your own beverage, or you can order for yourself as I wait for you. I have nowhere to be, and I don’t plan to. I take our time together very seriously.

If it helps you, I’ll share today’s ambient music focus spell tapping the back of my conscience with tentative, comforting fingertips. Binaural beats mimicking the comfort of an orchestra’s most underpinned currents, while restrained enough to keep it segmented from the other writing I plan on doing today—from client projects to personal fiction.

Are you sitting here with me? I hope you are.

If not, I want you to take another moment before you join me at the table. Or, whatever you believe fits our conversation the most. Paint a mental picture of where you’d like it to be. Your most comforting nook for learning, and of course, talking about what you’re learning.

Because, with all honesty, you and I are both constant students.

It’s important to be open about how I go into some of these personal dives—in which, today’s will be a little lighter, but still explore a topic that means a great deal to most people, even if they don’t realize it—so that you know I’m not trying to tower over you from a soapbox and preach about things I don’t know.

This is a friendly reminder that I’m as curious, voracious, and obsessed as you, but I’m in no way a scholar about the subject we’re about to discuss.

Everyone says you need “authority,” or to be seen as an authority figure in your writing. I do believe this is true. But, there’s nuance to this.

We can strike a balance between working as constant students, driven by the desire to learn and create on our own terms, and acknowledge that, no, we’re not quite “experts,” yet. Perhaps we never will be.

Real creators, artists, thinkers, and builders are always striving to learn. They’re striving to create no matter their limitations, and that requires constant appreciation and examination of the external and internal worlds.

Most of all, you bet your damned soul we obsess over our Quests for Knowledge.

We are obsessed with self-education. The desire to ruthlessly build and learn through the act of making, not strict observation. The practice of brutal intellectual honesty, through writing, reading, and similar acts of mirroring. The urge to wax poetic over the artifacts of the old world and do our best to predict the future with what we have.

This is the element of curiosity that only lifelong students—learners, thinkers, and makers—have.

If you ever strive to call yourself an expert, you must also understand that the title you’re reaching for should never limit the depth your mind seeks.

You’re here, reading this, because you want to learn.

Or, you’re here because you’re curious. Or, perhaps you’re a cross between both; some beautiful hybrid of intellectual desires and ruthless, creative independence.

If these descriptions are familiar to you, then you’ll appreciate what we’re exploring today, because the last thing I wanted to do was let this topic slip through my fingers without a proper, personal dissection.

First, I want you to think about a very specific question.

More importantly, I want you to think about it for a long moment. Not a second. Not even a minute. Perhaps a few minutes, if you can muster. Close your eyes if it helps you. Simply let the mind brew on these words, and let the question stir until you find it reasonable enough to nod your head and continue:

What did ancient history’s greatest thinkers have in common?

If you’re eyeballing this sentence, now, I’m assuming you’ve taken a few seconds, or minutes, to think about that question. You have an idea in your mind. You have an inkling of what the answer to this question might be. You have a strong, instinctive answer lodged in the back of your throat. You’re tapping your fingers on the table between us. Sipping your drink as you ponder.

Good. This means you care about the subject. This is a question all people on a quest for extraordinary knowledge need to consider.

We learn the best by creating and learning through that act of creation—but let’s please not forget that dissecting and unraveling the act of thinking, and applying it to our own mental systems, is an act of creation in itself.

To be frank, there are many things these Thinkers had in common.

Philosophers, teachers, educators, mathematicians, artists—you know, the polymaths who refused to allow for intellectual or creative constraints—were marvels worth studying for a reason.

We’re obsessed with learning how they solved problems and created movements, because we want to emulate those strengths of the mind, body, and spirit for our own benefit. This is widely understood.

What makes this even more exciting, is that each Thinker has their own unique method of approaching the art, science, and philosophy of thinking-as-creation.

Socrates, the Questioner.

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” — Socrates

Socrates famously engaged in continuous questioning dialogues that prompted real pondering. He was dedicated to drawing this action from his students, including Plato, and used this to engage and attract eager crowds.

He also, according to Plato, strongly believed that souls who do not love learning were destined to never be properly educated. He believed in the power of the desire to learn as much, if not more, the act of learning in itself.

Aristotle, the Builder.

"The pleasures arising from thinking and learning will make us think and learn all the more.” — Aristotle

Aristotle was a massive supporter of this, as well. This may come at no surprise to you, but it’s important to understand how magnetic and powerful his message has become, thousands of years after his death.

Aristotle supported the beauty and importance of thinking, but he championed the importance of using action as a form of thinking, as well. He was, as far as I know, one of the earliest voices framing the value of learning by doing.

This philosopher in particular has been hugely influential to me, for this exact reason. I love his fire, and his tenacity. There’s an athletic determination in his teachings that fuel me greatly as a polymathic thinker.

Aristotle said: “Men become builders by building and lyre-players by playing the lyre,” and everyone who wants to learn anything should adopt this.

To learn how to write, I started writing. To learn how to research, I started researching. To learn how to examine art critically, I started viewing art more critically. To learn how to design a website, I started designing websites. To learn how to build brands, I started creating spec brands with my own concepts, markets, ideal customers, and language. To learn copywriting, I studied famous ads that inspired me, and copied them by hand before creating my own. To learn how to write screenplays, I read a screenplay, studied the formatting, and started writing my own. To learn content design, I found examples of UX writing in the wild, dissected them, then created my own problem-solved samples based on those—which landed me a gig at Nike.

The world is truly your Oyster, my fellow Thinkers.

Without Aristotle, the philosophy of Learning to Build and Building to Think traveled generations, to land in our mental ecosystems as eager, ravenous humans who would trade anything to follow his examples.

Epictetus, the Survivor.

"Don't just say you have read books. Show that through them you have learned to think better, to be a more discriminating and reflective person. Books are the training weights of the mind.” — Epictetus

Epictetus has one of the most extraordinary origin stories of any philosopher. He was born a slave, gained his freedom, studied under Gaius Musonius Rufus—a brilliant Roman philosopher—established his own school in Nicopolis, and dedicated the rest of his life to teaching and inspiring his students to do one thing—to apply what they learn.

There’s a quiet resilience to Epictetus that is simply unmatched.

He proved through his learned actions that he was not a mind, nor a soul, to be trifled with. To overcome slavery and become one of the most influential Thinkers of all time, needs to be examined, learned from, and passed down forever.

Leonardo da Vinci, the Curious.

"Learning is the only thing the mind never exhausts, never fears, and never regrets.” — Leonardo da Vinci

Very few Thinkers have as much of an impact as Leonardo da Vinci.

In all honesty, this letter could have been written solely about him. His lived examples, philosophies, processes, unfinished projects, artistic endeavors, engineering marvels, and notebooks could comprise a series of documentaries due to the density of each category.

Da Vinci demonstrates the beauty of creative obsession. His methods are inspiring and stimulating to me personally—and you as well, I’m sure, Dear Thinker—because he understood that an entertained mind is a curious mind.

I personally have no doubt that da Vinci didn’t know what “boredom” was.

Boredom is a choice.

The world is too vast, too interesting, too beautiful, too complex, and too fascinating to be boring. Boredom is a decision for the lazy, tired, uninspired mind. It’s the default space for the uncurious and the uninteresting. It’s a choice landscape for people who feel uninspired and make uninspiring work (if they bother to work on anything at all). If you’re depressed, you’re less likely to see the excitement around you. If you’re addicted to self-victimization, you’ll cling to the idea of boredom as an involuntary fact, rather than a choice. If you’re not intelligent, you’re going to find everything around you boring.

Though, I can assure you it absolutely is a choice, and the second you realize that boredom is optional—not required—you’ll start to unravel a hidden part of your conscience you didn’t know existed.

Now, the most important detail about da Vinci as a Thinker is not just the obvious, talked-about contributions he has made to human history.

It’s that he was almost entirely self-educated.

He had little formal schooling, but pursued his desire to learn and build regardless of that. He disciplined himself and expanded his horizons, no matter how scholastic limitations. To him, limitations did not exist. They were not relevant.

His notebooks were also quite extensive, covering topics and disciplines across engineering, mathematics, hydraulics, flying machines, water movement, astronomy, light reflection, mechanical devices, physics, and anatomy.

Most of these notes were inspired from actual projects he had conducted and explored with his own hands and mind—including dissecting real corpses in order to understand human anatomy.

He is the most powerful example we have today—that we know of—who was an unbelievably curious Learner, and equally restless Builder.

Michelangelo, the Restless.

"Men of genius sometimes accomplish most when they work the least, for they are thinking out inventions and forming in their minds the perfect idea that they subsequently express with their hands.” — Giorgio Vasari on Michalengelo

While da Vinci is often heralded for his incredible contributions—as he should be—we fail to recognize Michelangelo (one of my personal art heroes) for his obsessive tendencies, undying tenacity, and ruthless dedication to his art.

He was a sculptor, architect, and painter. He was brilliant and, arguably, divinely blessed for his talent and vision. He was so dedicated to his work that he often went to bed, fully clothed, only to wake up the following morning to chisel away at the marble block that would eventually become David.

His ability to apply his vision, his Thinking, to his work is the perfect example of obsessive dedication borne out of a need, not a want.

It’s also valuable to keep in mind that his obsession was also tied into how he thought. He visualized these grand masterpieces before he applied the chisel, the hand, the brain. He viewed his work—his unbelievably perfect sculptures—as his children. They were the products of his intellect and creativity, and something far grander and deeper than we, as modern interpreters, could ever hope to understand.

What I find, and love, most about Michelangelo’s approach—that I also find deeply relatable—was the fact that he refused to take on students, or let others watch him work. He preferred working alone. He reveled in his own company, and inspired others through what he created at the end, not through what he could teach.

I would argue we would not have the brilliance of his work today if he was distracted by others trying to learn from him. He needed his genius to fester within his own little circle, in order to nurture his natural potential.

Obsessive people operate differently. They exist within a universe that is viewed with great criticism and massive misunderstanding. If you know, you know. Most people will not understand you. You should never care about what they think, or say. People who don’t understand true obsession have never known what it feels like. They are afraid of obsessive thinking, and view it as a threat to their stance as the less motivated individual. They don’t understand what it feels like to pursue a project with so much love, dedication, and blood-simmering ambition, that it consumes you for months, if not years, and the only way to silence those voices is to quell their desires and build, build, build.

Your lust for knowledge needs no cure.

These master Thinkers shared an insatiable need for knowledge.

But, they applied that knowledge. We have tangible evidence of their thought-creations due to their ability to create through their thinking. Their systems, patterns, projects, and art are so influential that we have no choice but to admire the grand genius of these people, and the bloodlettingly beautiful contributions they made to human history.

Their minds were weapons.

Their hands were weapons.

Their thoughts were weapons.

This is how you must view your mind. Not as a storage center for knowledge, but as a smithy. View your mind as the Forge. View your thoughts, ideas, and visionary elements as the ore. View the beautiful outcomes as the polished steel of a blade, or the spherical dome of a shield. View the process as stepping-stones, not a spiral that stops at nothing.

In order to create this, you must acknowledge your uniqueness. Your interwoven story, thoughts, opinions, and one-of-a-kind visionary responsibility. You’re the only person that’s truly you. No one can copy that. No one can truly copy every essence, pattern, and foundation of how you walk, talk, and think.

Never, ever try to destroy your desire to learn.

The only thing you must prioritize going forward is to use your knowledge as a method of creation.

Stagnant knowledge is a storage center.

Knowledge-as-creation is a living Forge.

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Dear Thinker,

Thank you for following along in today’s letter. These pieces are pulled from internal framings, thinkings, and passing observations that I feel deserve to be turned into something longer and, hopefully, more beneficial to the casual reader.

I’m a constant student, not an expert. I fear that if I ever call myself an expert, I’ll lose some of the advantages of curiosity that come with humble perspectives.

Curious to know what you thought about today’s piece, and if you’d like to see more off-the-cuff reflections like this. More diary-style. Less formal.

I’m also reworking the offerings for my paid subscribers. I’m considering allowing only one occasional free post for most readers, and putting the remaining longer, research-driven pieces behind a paywall.

The reason why is because I take this publication, and my readers, very seriously, and I want nothing more than to provide as much value as possible, while making this journey and community unbelievably fun, stimulating, and aspirational for everyone.

If you have thoughts on that, comment below, or DM me.

Would love your perspective.

Thank you, and I will see you soon,

Taylor

The Oyster is a reader-supported publication exploring how to build an original mind by unraveling the human condition—across philosophy, meaning, cognition, creativity, the science of the soul, and more. Consider pledging to a monthly subscription to help support my mission, and yours, to think for a living. Thank you for being here.