At a Loss for Words.

What would happen if someone asked you, “What is 2 + 3?” but you had only memorized “2 + 2”? As strange as it sounds - you wouldn’t know the answer. But you did not just memorize math answers; you trained your brain to run quick calculations; you understand these principles deeply, so your brain automatically combines groups of objects.

Seriously, think about it - if you did not truly understand the foundational concepts of addition but merely memorized the answer to one equation, you would not be able to answer any other problem.

This may all seem foolish - why would anyone do that?

Yet oftentimes we read books like The Catcher in the Rye and could tell you - “yeah, Holden Caulfield gets kicked out of school, wanders around New York City, and says he wants to be a catcher in the rye.” What if someone asked you, “Why does any of this matter?”

You might be at a loss for words - completely missing the deeper concepts of grief and human connection in the story. It’s so easy to skim over all the meaning in books, or in whatever you are learning. Many people feel a sense of completion after only extracting the surface-level details. This is not to say that consciously choosing to stop at a low level of proficiency in a field is necessarily a bad thing. Doing so may give you more time and energy to focus on the things you want to master, which is logical.

But what if the pattern of not digging deep in other learning attempts inadvertently seeps into the things you said you’d like to master?

In that case, you’d be doing yourself a disservice by not challenging yourself to great work. You can have all the details and still be at a loss for words when someone asks why any of it matters. Indeed, knowing why things are is what matters.