Portable Ideas

The Compass #004

Aug 22, 2026

How easy is it to acquire knowledge nowadays? Information is scattered everywhere. Of course, whether it is accurate or not is another matter.

When I first started reading, I always wondered:

how is wisdom acquired? how does someone reach the point of becoming the person whose advice everyone trusts?

When I was growing up, the answer to these questions was unquestionable: choose a field [though what choice can someone really make at eighteen?] specialize in it, and become very good at one specific thing. That was the path. And, in a way, you would become the kind of person who had an opinion about everything, while literally knowing nothing.

Of course, that has not changed. I mean, specialization is still extremely useful. What I believe has changed is society itself. New technologies have made access to information easier than ever before. And here lies the great debate: is the information accurate or not? A big question mark.

I have lived through times when, in order to complete a school assignment, I had to search through two or three different encyclopedias and it was an assignment consisting of three paragraphs. Today, this can be done in a few minutes. Everyone has access to all the information on the planet. And I reach the following conclusion:

Information continues to be what it has always been; it is critical thinking that needs to be cultivated.

University gave me an excellent foundation, but the journey begins precisely afterward the moment when no one tells you, “Read this.” You have to choose. I made some rather unusual choices. Although I had completed a degree in Physics, years later I also completed a degree in Computer Science, and then I earned a master’s degree in Business Administration. As I said, my path has been an unusual one.

What happened in parallel with all this in my life, however, was what shaped me. I was fortunate and lucky enough to have a girlfriend {who later became my wife} who studied Philosophy. This brought before my eyes an unfathomable body of knowledge and a depth I would never have encountered on my own.

Now that I think about it, how did all these things fit together at that particular moment?
It seems obvious to me now, but what about then?

Let me continue. I began to look at my life through the method of reverse engineering. In simple terms, from the end toward the beginning, and I arrived at the following conclusions:

Physics taught me not to look at the result, but at the cause. Computer Science taught me that every problem has an algorithm that unlocks it, no matter how complex it may be. Philosophy challenged me in a very different way: whatever I believe, I am the one who must judge it as rigorously as possible.

All the thoughts I have and all the ideas I imagine bringing to life are the result of these pursuits. A thought can travel from philosophy to physics, to business, and everywhere in between.

I just remembered such a moment as I am writing this. There was a period when I was reading Epicurean philosophers, and by chance I came across a book that would change the way I viewed my students in the classroom. The book was On Frank Criticism by Philodemus.

It concerns how someone in a position of advantage (such as a teacher or a manager) can offer constructive criticism without insulting anyone, but instead inspiring them.

That is why I believe the most valuable ideas are those that can be transferred, those that are portable. And this may also be a test worth applying to an idea one has had:

can it solve problems beyond the field in which it was discovered?

So as not to be absolute in what I say <I do not like doing that> I will add this: obviously, depth matters, as does specialization. But if curiosity is absent beyond that, specialization ultimately becomes a prison. The goal is not to know a little about everything. It is something much more demanding: to develop enough depth to make a genuine contribution somewhere, but also a broad enough range to recognize connections that others do not see. And every person can do this, because each one of us is unique.

And after the rise of AI, the most useful quality or skill any of us can have is the following: to discover the world through our own experiences, to offer the knowledge we have acquired, to deepen our understanding of ourselves, and simply to move forward.