Someone in Linked-In, not from my connection though, advised me to read books to ‘know’ what this person was posting about. Quite interesting! I replied to the person that I don’t read books. I made a forthright response with humility and grace. This person made no response nor did I wait for one.

And then, I grew interested in knowing this ‘know’. This person who asked me to read books is ‘in the know’ and I am out of the ‘know’! It implies that we are operating on two different plane! This put a question in my head. Does this person really know anything at all? Or rather, is it possible for him or her to ever know anything at all? As with me, I have absolutely no doubt about it that I know nothing. I don’t question this person’s bona fides about it that he or she chewed, drunk in, and devoured more books than my eyes could possibly meet in one life time.

To me, the point to ponder over is not how many tons of books has he or she read, or how many libraries has he or she devoured? The point to me is, does this person ‘know’ what he or she thinks or claims to ‘know’. What this person has come to ‘know’ having read a sea of books is definitely not his or her ‘know’. It is indisputably the ‘know’ of the authors who produced those books which under no circumstances could be the readers ‘know’. The readers borrow the ‘know’ from the authors, then too vain and pretentious to own it, and by and by convert the authors’ ‘know’ into their own ‘know’. And then, he or she swallows and digests the borrowed ‘know’ which runs through his or her veins and become part of his or her impregnable and treasured armory of knowledge. And this ‘know’ puts the lid on everything in her or him that could question or dispute this borrowed ‘know’ which even he or she has great difficulty blowing off later on.

Let me conjure up a situation wherein I borrow a pen from a friend, eye it greedily, and then, little later stake out my claim for it. I fight for it. I quarrel over it. What will the onlookers around me think of me! Mad! Insane! Fool! Stupid!

Isn’t it the same with hijacking others’ ‘know’ and claiming it as your own ‘know’? If I am mad or insane for staking out claim for the pen of my friend, then what about all those who go around boasting about the ‘know’ that belongs to someone else!

Just because I have read through the authors’ ‘know’, there’s no way can it automatically make it the readers ‘know’. And to claim the ownership of the authors’ ‘know’ as my own ‘know’ will mean chilies are sweet and sugarcanes hot. How? Well, because the authors know it and my own ‘know’ is nothing but the authors’ ‘know’.

And, if I don’t treat the authors’ ‘know’ as my own ‘know’, what the fuck have I read then? Why have I pissed down the drain hours, days, weeks, months and years for a silly thing that the authors ‘know’ and I don’t ‘know’?  And this borrowed ‘know’ has not only fucked around my time and energy but also has blunted my appetite to have my own ‘know’ if at all possible to have a ‘know’.

Now, let’s take a look at the ‘know’ of the authors cause I know the readers don’t have their own ‘know’, it is altogether a different matter that they swell with pride going about hanging degrees around neck of their ‘knowledge’.

To me, there have been two types of authors. The first type don’t originate the ‘know’ but borrow it. Once they borrow the ‘know’, they twist and bend it, knock it into some sort of shape other than it was,  paint it in different colors, add some spices to it, and make it look entirely different from the one they drew upon, and claims to have been the originator of this ‘know’.

The second type of authors originate the ‘know’ though their ‘know’ is definitely not the holiest ‘know’, and hence, receives lots of kicks and punches from the skeptics and denigrators. This group of authors are by far the most honest to a degree and extent a human could be but cannot be said to have transcended their own frontiers of honesty. By this what I am trying to say is that they are honest to their self and honest to the God while operating within the limitations of their sensory instruments.

This group of authors climb high atop a mountain, gaze at the Sun, and finds the Sun an indigo blue. This is their original ‘know’. The common herd cannot climb that high, remain at the foot of mountain, can’t gaze at the Sun from that plane, and have no way to know whether or not it is an indigo blue. Most of them borrow their ‘know’ and swell with pride in owning the author’s ‘know’, a few don’t take it and rubbish it. May be if someone could climb further high, he or she could find the Sun jade green, and further up, turquoise!

I don’t dispute their original ‘know’, I don’t accept it, though. The reason why I do so is that the ‘know’ emerge under tremendous loads of constraints, limitations of sensory and observation instruments we are provided with. To me, the unanswered question is, ‘Do I really ‘know’ what I figure out as I ‘know’? Or are there far greater and far important ‘knows’ and this delusive ‘know’ is handicapping me from reaching it.