I spend a lot of time consuming information. YouTube videos, Reddit threads, random essays, economics, finance, history, space, geopolitics, defence, FMCG, business models, industries I have nothing to do with, and honestly sometimes even topics that have no direct connection with my work. And for the longest time, I used to think, what is the point of reading all this if I am eventually going to forget most of it?
Because that is what happens, right? You read something interesting today, and maybe for a few hours it stays with you. Maybe you even bring it up in a conversation. But three months later, if someone asks you to explain that exact thing, you probably won’t remember the details. You won’t remember the names, the dates, the numbers, or the exact point that was made. So then it starts feeling like maybe all this consumption is pointless.
But I don’t think that is true anymore. Over time, I’ve realised that the point of consuming knowledge is not always to remember facts. The point is to build perspective. And perspective is not something that comes from one book, one article, one podcast, or one documentary. It builds slowly. Quietly. Almost without you noticing it.
You read something today and it leaves a small impression in your head. You watch a video about an industry you don’t belong to, and it gives you one new angle. You read about a financial crisis, a war, a market shift, a founder story, a historical event, or some random Reddit thread where people are discussing how a certain system works. You might forget the exact thing you read, but somewhere in your head, it adds a layer. It changes how you look at things.
That is the part I find interesting. We think knowledge is only useful when we can recall it perfectly, but a lot of knowledge does not work like that. A lot of it sits deeper. It becomes a part of how you judge situations. It changes what you notice. It changes the kind of questions you ask. It changes how quickly you can connect two completely unrelated things.
One day you are stuck in a business problem, or a life problem, or a decision where there is no clear answer, and suddenly your mind pulls something from somewhere. Maybe something you read months ago. Maybe something you heard in a podcast. Maybe some random idea from history or economics or consumer behaviour. You may not remember the source, but the impression is still there. The perspective is still there.
I like to think of this a little like a black box. The way AI is trained on massive amounts of data. You keep feeding it examples. This is right. This is wrong. This is noise. This is relevant. This is how systems behave. This is how people react. And after enough exposure, it starts finding patterns. It may not always explain the exact path clearly, but it has learned something from the data.
I think human perspective works in a similar way. Every article, every documentary, every conversation, every case study, every random observation becomes training data for your mind. You are not cramming facts. You are training your judgement. And that distinction matters.
Of course, I am not saying all consumption is good. There is a difference between curiosity and brainless scrolling. You can absolutely waste hours consuming content that adds nothing to you. But if you are genuinely curious, if you are trying to understand how things work, even outside your own industry, I think it compounds over time.
Reading economics helps you understand incentives. Reading history helps you understand cycles. Reading geopolitics helps you understand power. Reading finance helps you understand risk. Reading about different industries helps you understand business models. Reading about people helps you understand behaviour. Slowly, all of this starts shaping the way you think.
And once that starts happening, you begin seeing patterns everywhere. You realise that most things are connected. Markets, people, ambition, fear, culture, money, status, timing, luck, attention, power. Nothing exists in isolation. And the more you expose yourself to different ideas, the better you get at placing things inside a bigger map.
I think this matters even more when you are building something. A business, a career, a brand, a life, anything. Because most real problems do not come with clean answers. You are usually dealing with incomplete information, pressure, uncertainty, and multiple possible outcomes. In those moments, you don’t always rely on facts. You rely on judgement. And judgement comes from perspective.
That is why I consume so much. Not because I want to remember everything. I know I won’t. But because I want my mind to keep expanding. I want to keep collecting lenses. I want to keep exposing myself to ideas that may not be useful today, but might become useful years later.
Sometimes one random thing unlocks a thought you were struggling with for months. Sometimes one unrelated industry teaches you more about your own industry than your competitors ever will. Sometimes history explains the present better than the news does. And sometimes, you don’t even know what changed. You just realise that you don’t see things the same way anymore.
Maybe that is the real point of knowledge. Not memory. Perspective.
Kveer, signing out.