They say there is a certain limit of data that human brain can capture, comprehend and store a day which means we are actually limited in devoting our learning process throughout our life. Those processes also take times which are never plentiful for us. The older we get, the harder for us to learn new things. We even tend to forget more things like my colleague has been complaining, “old age” they say.

In that case, should I start controlling the data which I’m trying to squeeze into my memory? Some of them of course are uncontrolable, you just happen to encounter them during your daily life although they may be unnecesary like there is a clothing discount in store A area B which you may not even be interested at all. But on the other hand, this process is pretty much controllable for other things, like picking the book to read, or even to read newspapers, novel book or science magazine. They are done fully out of your consciousness.

There are two sets of data, whether they’re information – like the trend in stock market or the unreset in China -, or knowledge – what is aurora borealis, and why animals are named in binomial nomenclature. Information is pretty much valid for only certain period of times and captures random happenings which of course is tied to time frame, often provided by newspapers. But knowledge serves more to explain things like origins, mechanism, process which usually can be applied over and over and are not limited to a single timeframe.

Knowledge and information also inhibit different functions. Knowledge is very useful in an attempt trying to resolve or pull a decision on many different occasions which have similar attributes. Information is often only relevant on very specific case. Other similar case may requires different sets of information although the same knowledge can be applied. For example: you’re installing a windows on different computer. The same knowledge of windows installation can be applied but what computer name to be put, what is the primary network connection to be set – wireless or LAN -, they will rely on the information provided on the specific installation.

I often start clicking straittimes, detik, or jumping between pages of wikipedia, from the capital market, all the way to interstellar travel. This way, I’m wasting quite tons of time reading those information I actually require or those I may not even require.  I come to think I really need to really spend my time more efficiently by selecting the readings I will pick. This way as well will prevent myself to get overflooded.

But in a practical case, how do you define which sets of data is relevant or not relevant for you? Or whether it’s more important to dig more knowledge instead of information or vise vers? They are pretty much inconceivable for me. I know some people with very logical basis may also say, “Just learn through and through, you never know you may need them. Whatcha say?