The Illusion of Infinite Wisdom

The Book I Had to Write Myself

Books raised me. They were my educators, my companions, my windows into the world. But at some point, I started to wonder: Were they also my escape? This is a story about loving books so deeply that I forgot to live and how I eventually came back to myself.

A Childhood of Words

By fourth grade, I read everything I could find—novels, magazines, dictionaries, shampoo bottles, food labels, even the sides of markers. I read until the words blurred, until I couldn’t make out the white chalk on the green classroom board. My nearsightedness hit -2.00 before anyone noticed. I ended up in thick, awkward glasses, both exhilarated by all I was absorbing and quietly exhausted by it.

All Facts, All Alone

Then by fifth grade, I had already immersed myself in vast swathes of knowledge. I gave a passionate presentation on “Kingdom Animalia,” complete with facts no one asked for and a deep focus on a strange green duck I found fascinating. But the classroom didn’t care. They cared about snacks, gossip, and who had a crush on whom. So, I stood there alone in my excitement, and for the first time, I understood that knowledge doesn’t always connect—it can also isolate.

Chasing Knowledge Like Air

As I got older, I dove headfirst into memoirs, psychology, physics, economics, business, and self-help books. I believed every book held a secret to improving my relationships, sharpening my mind, or unlocking some kind of personal transformation. I was constantly reaching for more. If one book didn’t give me the answer, surely the next would.

But somewhere between the pages of life lessons and “how-to” guides, I started to realize I was collecting wisdom, but not always living it. I was improving, yes—but in theory.

The Cost of Knowing

I read Shakespeare’s prose, pushed through the extra five books my textbooks had left out, and even hunted through the dictionary for words I haven’t met yet. I reminded myself that books are time capsules; they’re fragments of history and distilled human experience.

But all that reading came at a cost. I read about menstruation several years before it happened, and when it did, I felt nothing. No surprise, no fear, no awe. My body felt like a machine going through a mechanical process. The magic of becoming a woman had been reduced to texts and diagrams.

Missing Chapters

As I dove even deeper into books, especially philosophy, I started to feel like I was growing, but in ways that others couldn’t see. My parents, who never finished high school, would call me “dumb” and “dumber.” In their eyes, all this reading didn’t translate to real-life street smarts. I was living in a dream world, they said.

I began to question whether all this knowledge was just a veil, a distraction from truly living, connecting, and finding meaning in the messy, everyday world.

Meaning of Growth

The answer is no.

I stand by it: wisdom remains the most important possession in my life. It’s sacred to me, even if no one else gets it. I will continue letting great books—and the lives of extraordinary people in history—change my life. And I will toss out the ones that are trash: contradictory, confusing, and unworthy of my time.

True growth, I’ve learned, doesn’t just come from reading more. It comes from knowing when to close the book. When to live, make mistakes, and listen to your own voice. We all have a unique relationship with learning. And sometimes, the greatest wisdom is learning to let go of other people’s words so you can start writing your own.

Read More with Eyes Open

Read more. Honestly. Every joy and every suffering has already been written. There is nothing unique about what you’re going through. A thousand people have felt the same emotions, walked the same path, and been stuck in the same pair of shoes.

Learn from their mistakes, so you don’t have to repeat them. Engage with other people’s worlds, even those that don’t resemble your own, to realize that in the end, you’re never alone. And your story matters.

Write Your Own

Be your own author.

From books, you will judge less and accept more. But always remember: while wisdom is infinite, your life is not.