Research is a Drug
“The Hidden High of Knowing Too Much”
Addiction is not only about substances like alcohol or caffeine. There are subtler forms that capture the mind without harming the body. Research can become one of these hidden indulgences.
I’m not referring to targeted studies with clear goals. I mean the endless chase of knowledge for its own sake. It pulls you deeper with the promise of something new.
That moment of discovery feels like a powerful high. Uncovering a secret gives an adrenaline rush and a sense of brilliance. Unlike most highs, it leaves you believing you are smarter.
The cure lies in balance and self-awareness. Ask yourself if you seek useful understanding, or another intellectual hit. Real progress happens when you apply discovery to problems that matter.
> The cure lies in balance and self-awareness. Ask yourself if you seek useful understanding, or another intellectual hit. Real progress happens when you apply discovery to problems that matter.
Rather naïve, I'm afraid to say. Because the system does not allow people to work on problems "that matter". The entire system is geared to give people intellectual hits in return for furthering the system, and very little good can come out of modern research institutions for the average researcher (or should I say, player of the game). There are exceptions and small areas that are different, but the vast majority of research fields are like this.
Balance is really not possible within modern technological society, at least if your career is research. Grants and private funding only go towards that which is ultimately profitable, not that which genuinely solves any problem. Even the vast majority of innovations these days are mainly ways to create new instances of the prisoner's dilemma so that profit can be extracted from the move towards the sub-optimal.
In the title of another one of your posts, you say that research can be a creative act. That is actually true, but again, the system distills all of that good stuff, throws away the experience and the part that helps you improve yourself, and uses it for destruction.