Consuming Knowledge: I Can't Turn it Off • The Havok Journal

I consume and consume. Every question unanswered or unknown is like an itch that must be scratched. My curiosity so expansive the subject matter has no boundaries. I consume and consume. I read, I listen, I watch… I consume the answers of the world. I try to challenge the ideas implanted in my own mind in the face of diverging opinions. I try to revel in the nuances of the world and throw away the cookie cutters. I consume because the world is much more beautiful when it is observed in its truest form, complexity.

I consume knowledge almost non-stop. I ask questions like a five-year-old child. I look out into the world and try to understand everything. Why are buildings designed like that here and not there? Why that color? Why that name? Why are they like that? Why am I like this? Why are we like this or that here and not there?

I have always consumed. It is as if I was born with some urge to understand. As if why was my default state of thinking. It brings with it a greater understanding of the world and the people within it, but it also brings great difficulties. I consume and consume to combat against the wives’ tales of old. To understand not only the anecdotal but the meta. I consume to be better. The problem with knowledge, with consuming, is it never shuts off. It keeps me awake. It keeps me moving from one completed task to the next. It cannot leave a rumor or wives’ tale unchallenged. It makes for a restless husband and annoying friend. It makes great for lively debate among the thoughtful but not for friendly conversation among stalwarts, an ever growing group in todays polarized society.

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Jake Smith is a law enforcement officer and former Army Ranger with four deployments to Afghanistan.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.