May I please just stop knowing things?

I hesitate to claim I know too much, for at first glance I would seem an insufferable egotist. And, as all we millennials* know, the image we present to the world is something we ought to curate and protect above all other treasures, lest we face the horror of someone not liking us.

(* Isn’t it wonderful to belong to a generation that can lay such claim to an entire 1000-year period, simply by virtue of stumbling through puberty at its epoch? We will stay forever hip and contemporary, unless we live to the year 3000, and if that’s the case then I figure we probably won’t worry too much about remaining hip and contemporary and more about the zombie vampire cyborg  morlock hordes, for which we really ought to start making plans .)

While knowledge has much to recommend it, and the image of vast Scrooge McDuck-style vaults of factoids lining the walls of my brain is bewitching, frankly, there’s a lot of stuff I know I’d just prefer to, well, not know.*

(* This essentially falls into two categories: that which contributes to feelings of comparative personal inadequacy, or FOMO; and that which simply clutters up mental stores with little more practical use than a hypothetical pub quiz somewhere in the future, e.g. knowing about the bilateral vomiting centre, the part of your brain which is tasked with making the final call on whether or not to chunder when your body is debating the issue.)

This was not always so. Growing up a sprightly young rapscallion, full of enthusiasm and artificially-coloured gelatine treats, knowledge seemed all tinsel and cake: wonderful, shining; that which would set my mind and soul free from the gauche bonds of my physical form and allow their escape into a world of infinite possibility, or at least a solid white-collar job.

Now, a twenty-something adrift in a rowboat of insecurity in the information age, I know better. Knowledge is stressful. Knowledge is burdensome. Knowledge is scary.

Knowledge ought to help me make wise decisions, but really, there are now just too many competing pieces of knowledge rattling around in my brain to ever make an easy decision. And because they’re not easy, I just don’t want to make them. They’re tiresome, and rarely correct.

This sounds sacrilege, of course. Freedom of thought is lauded as a foundation of modern society; to reject that is criminal – or ungrateful, at best. But can’t I just have the option of freedom? Like, the freedom to be free, should I want to be free one day when I’m feeling a little less confounded by life, and when there’s nothing good on television?

Still, I can’t really rid myself of knowledge. Yes, that tried-and-true pastime of imbibing ludicrous quantities of alcoholic beverage might help accelerate the process of assassinating mental stores, but it’s not exactly healthy, and one still ends up picking up plenty of useless knowledge over a pint.

So when there’s something with which you don’t want to deal, but still has to be dealt to, you do something very simple: you palm it off on someone else. Or, in more acceptable language, you delegate. You outsource. And that’s what I would like to do with my knowledge.

As with so many of today’s great problems, let’s fix it with technology. I propose a vast computer system, which I will term “Walter”.*

(* Because “Walter” is a neat name that needs to earn back the air of well-meaning docility it lost after Breaking Bad.)

Walter will relieve my mind of all the knowledge I don’t want, while still allowing that knowledge to guide what I do. Walter will weigh up all the factors and provide me with the best decision in any situation, such as which flavour of potato chip will most buoy my spirits.* Walter will know far more than I do consciously, and divorced of emotion and illogical whims, it will always know exactly what I ought to do.

(* Do not underestimate this. This is one of the hardest decisions you will ever make, and if you’ve found such decisions easy so far it’s only because you haven’t been approaching them right.)

This is only an extension of life as it is. How many times have you started a sentence to someone with “What should I…” “Do I look…” “Am I being…”? Inevitably, you want someone to tell you the opposite of a truth you already know, and most times you’ll get exactly that.*

(* Along with the secret ire of your friends, who’ve now pegged you as whiny and indecisive – but it’s okay, ‘cause they’re in pretty much the same boat.)

But that’s not what you need, and that’s not what you’ll get from Walter. Walter will give you only the facts, not cushioned by an attempt at seeming cuddly. Because Walter isn’t cuddly. It’s, like, metal and stuff.

This is an improvement on the status quo, certainly. But if we take it to the next level, and if Walter knew what we all knew, collectively, then its decisions could take into account all our stations in life, and deliver decisions that would benefit us all equitably. Walter would know which jacket I ought to wear out tonight in order to look swish, because Walter would know the preferences of the people I’m likely to encounter. And, as previously established, the integrity of our image is paramount, so that works out pretty nicely.

But how would I offload my knowledge to Walter? Turns out I lack sufficient knowledge to figure that one out. You might say that torpedoes my thesis, but I say all great innovation emerges from hubris, otherwise known as “a bucket of ego-veiled miscalculation”. And by God, if there’s anything we millennials will need to battle the zombie vampire cyborg morlock hordes, it’s that.

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