The Relief of Not Knowing

Image Source: Minji via Pinterest

It’s okay not to know everything. As humans, we often want to know every detail about everything. We often want answers and will go through extreme measures to find those answers. Even if those answers mentally drain us. 

But sometimes we can’t handle all the information that’s thrown at us. We have something called cognitive load, which means that there is only so much information that we can handle with the mental resources available to us.  The human brain can process 11 million bits of information every second, but our conscious minds can handle only 40 to 50 bits of information a second. 40 to 50 bits of information is nothing compared to 11 million, and that’s for a reason. Our brains are trying to protect us, to shield the ooey, goooey, smushy part inside; the part that is vulnerable, that feels, that worries, and that sometimes can’t take in everything all at once. If the task requires more than we can handle, it can cause mental strain and can cause our brains to struggle when processing information or making sense of it. Cognitive overload can also cause us to cloud our judgment and not make the most appropriate decisions. 

All the information that we carry has some sort of emotion linked to it, and as we know, emotions can be heavy. Our brains are built to prioritize, filter, and protect that soft, vulnerable part of ourselves, letting only what we can handle through at a time. That’s why, despite our curiosity, knowing more can make us feel worse than not knowing anything at all. Just like Tame Impala says, “The Less I Know the Better.”