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Proyecto Visión 21

The time has arrived for us to become knowmads

Francisco Miraval

I once read, but I don’t remember where or when, that there is a small animal in the ocean whose small brain allows the animal to complete many tasks. However, if that same animal decides to stay at one place, then its brain will disappear.

It sees that as long as that small animal swims from one place to another, then its tiny brain will analyze the temperature of the water, the movement of the currents, and the depth and speed the animal is swimming. And it will guide the animal to hunt for food.

Yet, if that same animal finds a rock or another place to stick to, it will do it. The new sedentary life means no swimming and no hunting for food. As a consequence, its brain slowly disappears. I think, but I am not sure, that the brain will not reappear even if the animal is forced to swim again.

I believe that something similar is happening to many of us. We have a place to “anchor” ourselves, be it our family, church, college, or city, and we stay there. Then, slowly, but constantly, our brain gets smaller and smaller and it even disappear. We stop thinking. We don’t have any new ideas and we lose our creativity.

Perhaps that’s why people say that traveling is one of the best ways to find yourself. Whatever the case, there are no doubts that our daily dehumanizing routine prevents us from thinking. We are constantly invited to acritically accept the patterns of living being thrown to us, to stop making waves, to stop dreaming and imaging.

So, to recover our active, thinking brain, I propose we should all become knowmads, with that spelling. We know that nomads are people who don’t settle at one particular place. They are not primitives, they just go from place to place, meeting people and traveling only with what they need (the opposite of the technologized medievalism now trapping us.)

I am not proposing to become nomads, but knowmads, to emphasize the idea of knowledge (or “gnosis”, in Greek.) So, I propose to become vagabonds of knowledge, visiting all fields of knowledge, meeting different culture, exploring and exchanging ideas.

We, knowmads, like to read books we don’t understand, to talk with people we disagree, to watch documentaries about topics unknown to us, to learn from unexpected teachers, and to take the time to meet our true self so we can recognize ourselves in others. We meditate about the deep roots of the present so we can connect with the best possible future.

Our small, tiny brains are enough to keep us moving. We know that if we stop moving, if we are stuck inside a doctrine or ideology, our brains will atrophy. We don’t pretend to ever be right. We just want to keep thinking creatively and critically.

We knowmads only want to carry what is essential to us: family, friends, experiences. Everything else is left for those who believe already have everything.

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