Earlier this year, in Issue 107, I wrote about a two-month-long experiment where I drastically distanced myself from all current events and news media. Though I’ve never been a news junkie and loath all politics, I am curious and want to learn, so I spent a few years attempting to balance the wave of fear and doom by listening to science-education podcasts like Huberman Lab, following good news Instagram accounts, and subscribing to Wired magazine.

Just before starting this experiment, I’d also come off a long stretch of health-related inquiry after learning I carry the BRCA gene. In my spare time, I was reading books on longevity, distilling the pros and cons of preventative mastectomies, and annoying the hell out of a genetic counselor by asking who funds the institution that recommends annual mammograms and MRIs for folks with BRCA, despite conflicting research that indicates excessive radiation from mammograms could actually be harmful for BRCA carriers because “Women who carry deleterious BRCA mutations have an impaired ability to repair damage that arises in the DNA that makes up genes…the small amount of radiation exposure due to a mammogram – essentially an X-ray – can contribute to DNA damage.”

The National Cancer Institute is government-funded by the way, which is a benign way of saying it’s run by lobbyists. This isn’t necessarily bad—most research is publicly funded—but let’s not pretend we’re frolicking in a field of altruism. Cancer is big business. My experience in the world of mental health x pharmaceutical influence means I cannot approach a health issue without looking to see who is pulling the narrative strings. A guideline is never just a guideline. It always comes from somewhere. Typically, the end point is a multinational organization that oh so coincidentally makes a lot of money off of the story being told (Coca Cola funding, influencing, and owning the URLs of anti-obesity groups) or a wartime guideline that no one ever bothered to dig into. The Recommended Dietary Allowances of nutrients, for example, were introduced during World War II in order to advise “on nutrition problems in connection with national defense.” This was about the minimum required to survive another day of battle. Yet, every nutrition label and marketing scheme still reflects these antiquated numbers.

Knowing how all this works, my personality left me with only one choice: go HAM on my own reading and research.

I found a functional medicine doctor and ran dozens of labs, listened to health and longevity podcasts while driving, and read the latest books on preventative medicine and mind-body health. My diet, which already underwent a big overhaul in 2021, tightened up in the most unexpected of ways: more red meat, fewer vegetables, no seed oils, and little to no alcohol.

I’ll never know how, or if, these changes actually prevent or delay a cellular oopsie. Carrying the BRCA gene does not guarantee mutation. But all the research and changes gave me a sense of control over the situation…until it didn’t.

We glorify learning, as if knowing more information is always the right call. But knowledge has diminishing returns; there comes a point where you know what you need to know, and knowing more actually causes more issues because it interferes with your intuition. Yes, I had gained a rudimentary understanding of one possible health future. But I was also fried, anxious, and no closer to figuring out what in the hell to do about it.

So I decided to stop learning.

Midway through the year, fresh off the unexpected glory of staying away from all news and current events, I put myself on a learning embargo for an undetermined amount of time. No more doctor’s appointments. No more medical books. No more podcasts. No more fear-based learning. I was to be purposefully dumb!

My god, what freedom. Between no current events and no learning, all my free time went to reading fiction, painting, and running in the hills. I listened to music while driving, found a group of old men to play chess with on Saturday afternoons, and used up all the hot water during daily, mind-wandering showers.

In time, I came to find a sense of peace around my persnickety genetics. If it becomes something I need to deal with, I trust myself to deal with it. In the meantime, I know I’ve made the best changes with the information I have in order to give myself the best shot of never having to deal with it. Really, what more is there to do?

All this to say, look at your life. Where might it be beneficial for you to actually learn less? Consider it addition by subtraction. In going on a learning embargo, I wasn’t practicing denial. Instead, I was making room for integration, understanding, and the quiet voice that always knows.