UCWG 006: Does Knowledge without Power Lead to Idle Suffering?

Very often, our greatest suffering stems from our ability to conceive of things we cannot obtain. The explorers who feel this great pain must either suffer with it internally or learn to branch out and pursue what makes them happy in greater landscapes around them. Gregory is joined today by a reader of one of his books (Travel As Transformation) who is seeking new sources of personal growth and fulfillment in his life. Alexander feels frustrated because he does not know where the next great challenge for him lays, and he grows increasingly bored with the tools he has grown accustomed to in his ordinary world.

One of the topics we lay the foundation for the conversation with is Low Latent Inhibition (LLI), which is a set of psychological traits that make certain people attuned to taking in more working information from the world than others, thus increasing their ability to conceptualize all the different ways that things could be. Most famously, the character Michael Scofield from the TV show Prison Break was diagnosed as having LLI, thus accounting for his creative genius and insatiable need to solve difficult problems.

It has been said that every seeker must choose one of two paths: the path of yoga (inaction/abstinence) or the path of tantra (action/indulgence). Gregory advocates using external world experience to find the bearings of the self, whereas Alexander praises the virtues of tai chi and meditation. Ultimately, the two come to a consensus that it is vital for intelligent and ambitious young people to learn to differentiate between experiential and conceptual versions of themselves, and overcome the naivety of inexperience.

Do you feel stifled that there is a version of you that you don’t know how to embody? What bold actions into the unknown and uncomfortable can you take in your life right now?