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*this article is free from all forms of artificial intelligence chatbot utilization*
What is a Modern Know-it-all?
First, I’ll tell you exactly what it’s not.
This intellectual level is not the traditional know-it-all that emits strong traits of narcissism, egocentrism, and authoritarianism along with their perceived intelligence.
This philosophical summit is not about stuffing in as much knowledge as possible and pursuing the impossible task of truly knowing it all.
In fact, becoming the smartest person within your world has everything to do with reevaluating what is already known, and upgrading your cognitive awareness to the latest operating software.
In its simplest definition, a Modern Know-it-all is as follows:
One that masters an infallible worldview anchored first by the awareness that to truly know-it-all requires systematically
undoing it all, and secondly, by daily executing a unique hybridization of specific philosophies.
This blog is designed to show precisely how to achieve this enlightenment known as a “Modern Know-it-all” in a step by step structure.
1. Understand the Dual Ignorances
Our cultivation of knowledge has a fascinating backstory. Our brains have been our greatest engineer throughout our evolution yet also our biggest hindrance.
The things that our primitive ancestors did not understand and/or that which they feared were given made-up god identities through their specific made-up sounds and symbols and worshiped. This early, highly fear-driven existence is where mythology, supernatural concepts, and imagination-driven delusions were birthed.
You see, in this early stage of our species’ ignorance, without being able to explain or comprehend our objective world, we allowed subjective knowledge (or rather emotional “guesses”) to create false conclusions to the mysteries of life.
As these inaccuracies, or rather subjective knowledge, spread throughout early tribes, these misinformed lifestyles, ideologies, rituals, and beliefs became solidified as “truth”- though far from it.
This is what we call naive ignorance. Our ancestors truly didn’t know any better, and that’s rightfully understandable.
While naive ignorance was inevitable, it was the beginning of our addiction to self-generated dopamine. Every subjective “truth” and every made-up god, faith, religion, ideology and worldview unleashed this addictive chemical into our DNA.
Dopamine convinced our predecessors that their inaccurate worldviews and lifestyle choices were of extraordinary value when they were never anything other than untamed emotions that produced chemical hugs.
Through many years of scientific advancement and cognitive evolution we became more educated and knowledgeable about our objective world. We discovered more and more accuracies that then eliminated any so-called “truth” to previous inaccuracies.
And today, naive ignorance is all but extinct.
Yet, those that refused to accept and cognitively adapt to circulating accurate knowledge, and instead hold onto their inaccurate subjective realities, ignited the most detrimental type of ignorance to date- willful ignorance (also known as premeditated ignorance).
It is willful ignorance that is the biggest cause of conflict in our world today.
Willful ignorance is at the root of global wars, broken human relationships, and political and societal regression and resistance. These larger-scaled conflicts that take place in our homes, neighborhoods, cities, and throughout entire countries usually stem from willfully ignorant political affiliations, inaccurate religious worldviews, or other misguided lifestyle ideologies.
This infallible worldview of a modern know-it-all has absolutely no room for any shred of willful ignorance that affects our friends, family, and collective society around us.
2. Rid Thyself Of Delusional Dopamine
Our brains have the power to manipulate any environment or situation to feel the pleasure of dopamine. Our brain will damn well make sure that we see, hear, feel, and even believe the most absurd things just to get another affirming, comforting chemical hit.
And dopamine doesn’t discriminate between healthy hits and unhealthy hits. Dopamine carries no allegiance to inaccuracies or accuracies. Dopamine adheres to no guidelines, regulations, background checks, common sense, reasoning or logic.
As I mentioned before, our brain can be our greatest supporter and yet our biggest hindrance.
This same machine that gets off to inaccurate dopamine still remains the only machine capable of identifying and replacing inaccurate dopamine with accurate dopamine.
Faith and religion will be a primary topic in this journey to an infallible worldview. It really has no other choice than to be near the top of discussion.
Faith and religion has been at the root of several past large scale wars and genocides, and today it remains a constant cause of societal oppression, suffocated human freedoms and rights, and remains a driving staple throughout conservative nationalist politics around the world.
Born as a white male in the USA, naturally I was indoctrinated into one of the many branches of christianity. I devoutly pledged myself to “god and country” for about twenty years. However, today as a modern know-it-all having completely deconstructed and disassociated from any made-up faith or religion, I can confidently make this universally accurate claim-
None of it is “real” real.
Consequently, this brings us to a very uncomfortable global realization:
If any made-up creature (like any god, angel, demon, or even gandalf the grey) or any made-up place (like heaven, hell, or even mount doom) cannot be experienced in our real objective existence or at the very least scientifically proven to have ever been tangible in the past, then they are mythical, which is defined as only existing within one’s imagination.
And here’s the accurate gut punch to the billions of faith believers around the world, and the gut punch that I once had to painfully and humbly absorb:
A strong belief and/or lifestyle and/or worldview based upon that which is mythical falls under the very definition of delusional.
I’ve used faith and religion as the prime example here because faith and religion is by far the largest human-produced delusional dopamine dupe in our world.
Having said that, this global cognitive deception doesn’t end at faith and religion.
Delusional ideologies drive many other common inaccuracies like racism, ethnic/race exceptionalism or privilege, religious nationalism, political or societal conspiracies, anti-science rhetoric, among other insane, self-righteous idiolect.
To attain an infallible worldview and become a modern know it all, one must first identify any lingering naive or willful ignorance in their cognitive operating software and upgrade to modern accuracies.
Immediately following, this aspiring intellectual has to replace any inaccurate, delusion-based dopamine producers with accurate dopamine producers.
3. Decipher A Made-up Accuracy vs. A Made-up Inaccuracy
The core foundation of a modern know-it-all’s infallible worldview is based on this universal absolute truth:
All words are made up.
Each word that we speak is merely a lung puff of air that hits a vibration muscle on the way through the throat, to then be modified a certain way by our tongue muscle to exit out of the mouth as a specific sound.
Words are only manipulated air. They have zero intrinsic, or natural, meaning.
Written (or typed) words are only made-up symbols to coincide with our made-up lung puffs. They mean absolutely nothing unless our emotions allow them to carry meaning. Their only power is that which we choose to give them.
Being aware that all words are made-up, this would naturally mean that all faiths/religions/gods, laws, country names, ideologies, human names, concepts of time, literally everything that we kill for, die for, disagree (or even agree) over, worship over, get excited or depressed over, was and continues to be 100% made up from literally thin air.
Even my words that you read or hear right now are completely made-up. Essentially, I’m using made-up sounds and symbols to correct and further explain other made-up sounds and symbols.
Now, I don’t really have any other choice, and that’s alright. Communication would be inevitable for our species’ survival and progression.
Nevertheless, in order to truly master our world of made-up shit, we must learn an essential mental exercise to ascend above the arbitrary norm:
How to decipher between made-up accuracies vs made-up inaccuracies.
Let’s begin by dissecting what a “made-up accuracy” is, and we’ll use science as our example.
Everything under the umbrella of “science”- the terminology, theories, and explanations- involves our made-up sounds and symbols. Yet, even though everything within science is still made-up sounds and symbols, science and all components therein are made-up accuracies to explain our objective world, to make sense of that which just is.
On the contrary, “made-up inaccuracies” would be anything stemming from imagination, baseless conspiracy, or that of strictly emotion. Moreover, a made-up inaccuracy can be any ideology, statement, or mindset that carries zero proof of ever being “real” real, along with anything that has been refuted by modern science, and anything that contradicts common sense, logic, and objective reasoning.
Our advanced world is saturated with our species’ countless opinions, perspectives, and worldviews. With the internet, social media, television, and radio, our brains are processing our own made-up sounds on what is essentially an endless loop of noise.
And every lung puff from our species is either a made-up accuracy or a made-up inaccuracy.
In order to fully master our artificial world, a modern know-it-all recognizes the imperative need to purge thyself of any existing willful ignorance and/or phantasmal delusions and train themself to be sharp in deciphering what is accurate and inaccurate within the fabricated elements of our existence.
4. Nurture This Cognitive Revolution
For our next step, we can continue the ascent to the modern know-it-all summit by walking through the vital process of inaccuracy
deconstruction, or what I like to refer to as a cognitive revolution.
A cognitive revolution is not necessarily waking up one morning with a completely altered way of thinking. It usually doesn’t happen like this. For just as we repeatedly train our brain to strongly believe something, an equal if not harder training process is required to unlearn habitual actions, thoughts, and beliefs.
Each one of us came into this existence as a blank canvas. Our parental figure(s) or mentor(s) held all the paint brushes for our early years.
Stroke by stroke, they taught us how to create our regional communication noises (speech), perfect our regional accent, how to write down our regional communication symbols (writing), how to eat, how to dress, how to interact with others, how to process the existence around us, and what to believe or not to believe.
Many of our parents or mentors painted us just like someone else painted them. Generational art created by past down strokes of good qualities, bad qualities, and misinformation along with accurate information.
However, it doesn’t matter if our parent(s) or mentor(s) painted us how their parents painted them or if they chose to paint us the opposite of their childhood training. Either way, we had absolutely zero say in the early creative process.
We unwillingly became a living piece of art that someone else envisioned.
Our educated generation is becoming more and more aware of this reality and we are taking back control over our lives. We are reevaluating our raised thinking, redefining our raised way of life, and reassessing our raised habits and rituals.
So then, are we obsessed with inaccurate religious ideologies just because of where we happened to be born and raised? Or because someone else was amped about it and coerced us in?
Are we blindly pledging allegiance and singing anthems and devoting precious time to nationalist rhetoric that carries zero meaning outside of what we allow it to?
Are we living by someone’s past down script or are we writing our own original story?
Have we stopped and covered our canvas back into a blank white slate and painted something on our own terms? Or are we still physically, emotionally, and cognitively living out someone else’s artistic vision?
This deconstruction process has to be done correctly. We can’t just cover a few paint strokes here and there; we must start over with all the paint brushes in only our hands.
This is the way to not only a mature transformation but to ignite and nurture a cognitive revolution.
5. Welcome The Emotion Regulation Appraisal
Our artificial world has gotten so dysregulated from inaccurate ideologies, worldviews, rituals, and uneducated day to day lifestyle choices that it is very hard for any modern know-it-all to not get sucked in and lose their emotional awareness and composure.
There are many popular artificial concepts and lifestyle choices in our world that have completely disregarded the need for mindfulness and emotional regulation.
It is imperative to dial back and embrace a reality check on the following:
We are not special, nor were we created by an intelligence of any kind…
Time does not intrinsically, nor objectively, exist…
Fiat money has no worth outside of our imagination…
Patriotism, nationalism, and cultural/spiritual rituals are popular made-up concepts and lifestyle choices that produce inaccuracies around our world…
We are barbaric, nasty, selfish primates at the core. Be careful not to allow modern domestication blind us to what we will revert back into if stripped of all comforts and forced into desperation.
The most accurate acceptance of our species using our made-up words is this: we are merely water-filled flesh pods that roam a space rock in an endless oblivion that doesn’t give a rat’s ass about our insignificant blink of an existence.
There’s an immense emotional release in floating above all the made-up guesses, explanations, supernatural theories and never-ending squabbles about life’s origins and simply regulating back to these two sentences-
We just are. Life just is. A modern know-it-all recognizes our true animalistic identity and disassociates from any narcissistic entitlement from our kind.
We are raised to idolize this fabricated concept of money and allow made-up clocks to dictate every precious moment of this one life. Granted, are both of these concocted structures necessary nonsense to thrive in our modern world? Sure. However, the key is in controlling our mental health and emotions through recognition and balance.
We are indoctrinated from an early age to generate emotion over made-up patriotic songs and anthems, arbitrary laws, history written from the winner’s perspective, imaginary country lines, lifeless objects like flags, and dirt/earth that carry zero significance outside of collective imagination.
We certainly don’t have to perform weird, public patriotic rituals that revere a nation’s fantasized version of itself, rather than humbly owning up to its ugly history and striving to evolve out of any continued willful ignorance.
It is perfectly fine to educate oneself and disassociate from generations of misinformed patriotic, spiritual, and other cultural rituals and conditioning.
To be fair, I understand how hard it is to unlearn this stuff and replace inaccurate dopamine with an alternate source of dopamine. I really do. It took me many, many years to upgrade my processing software to embrace these uncomfortable truths.
The overall idea here, in the pursuit of an infallible worldview, is to unquestionably grasp the reality that societal “norms” are only as emotionally significant as we allow them to be.
A modern know-it-all must stay in tune with an awareness of baseline realities and dominate their emotional regulation.
6. Assemble The Philosophical Buffet
This is where we conclude this cognitive reawakening with the final passage to an infallible worldview.
All in all, in theory, how do we intellectually float above the day to day nonsense? Who then do we become to navigate our artificial world and stay sober from inaccurate dopamine?
How does a modern know it all live and think and speak?
The full cognitive arsenal of a modern know it all’s lifestyle is essentially a buffet of different operating philosophies. And by daily taking a little of this and a little of that, the hybridization completes this infallible worldview.
Here is that daily intellectual buffet containing the cognutrients that a modern know it all lives off of:
Constructive Nihilism: our very foundation. Everything other than living creatures, nature, and the greater cosmos is 100% made up from past lung puffs and hand scribbles. Life has no inherent meaning or purpose; therefore, life becomes an incredible free for all to make it count in the most authentic, constructive manner possible.
Secular Humanism: gods don’t exist. Our worldview revolves around the “real” reality that objectively affects us all, with a strong daily focus on the following core values: empathy, critical thinking, ethical development, social justice, environmentalism, altruism, responsibility & ownership, and global awareness.
Buddhism or Taoism: putting the rituals and ancient superstitions aside, modern buddhism or taoism does have elements that can be very essential to the infallible worldview of a modern know it all. Both focus on meditation, mindfulness, philosophical maturity, virtuous conduct, a goal to eliminate mental suffering, and to gain cognitive balance in life.
Biological Pragmatism: this philosophy emphasizes the imperative need to align knowledge and education with the practical needs and challenges of human life. The focus is to equip each other with the skills relevant to navigate real world problems while also prioritizing adaptability as a key characteristic to thrive in an ever changing world.
Considerate Hedonism: while there is no inherent purpose to life, our bodies have evolved with an ability to see, hear, taste, smell, and touch to accomplish two fundamental tasks on a daily basis: survive and experience pleasure. Evolution has given us the tools for limitless pleasures and experiences.
Original hedonism promoted this pursuit of pleasure without giving a fuck about consequences or how others might be affected, which goes entirely against our other values and philosophies. Today, considerate hedonism aims to prioritize one’s intake of pleasure and positive experiences without being reckless, without being held back by superstitious ignorance, and by giving due consideration to how actions may impact others.
Modern Stoicism: we just are. Life just is. A stoic’s greatest strength is to cultivate inner calm in the face of external chaos. Remember, everything outside of animal, nature, and the greater cosmos is 100% made up from our ape-like species. It’s all just insignificant noise in the big picture.
A modern stoic constantly reflects on what is accurate, practices gratitude, focuses only on what can be controlled, shows temperance to the allure of artificial nonsense or inaccurate dopamine, and finds inner strength, self-worth, self-control, and wisdom through maintaining power over the mind.
By daily utilizing a little bit of this and a little bit of that across the philosophical spread listed above, that hybridization solidifies this infallible worldview.
In conclusion, all steps considered, this is the systematic step by step guide to becoming a modern know-it-all. Nevertheless, this blog is only the condensed version to silently and confidently be the wisest and smartest human in every room entered from here on.
For the full roadmap to this pinnacle of cognitive evolution, check out my book, “The Modern Know-it-all: A Handbook To Achieving An Infallible Worldview”. Click/tap on the book cover below to go straight to the Kindle, paperback, and Audible versions.
Additionally, more audiobook options, podcasts, and blogs are available at Worldly-Minded
