Dear Humans,

We have two cats. One of them is a chonk who demands a full bowl at all times. She bites at your feet and follows you around the kitchen until you comply.

So we buy giant bags of dry cat food. But because it would get stale before even the chonk could eat it all, we pour the food from the bag into a 5-gallon bucket with airproof lid. Then, because it’s difficult to pour the food out of the 5-gallon bucket into the food dish, we keep a smaller amount of foot in a 1.5 quart, pourable plastic container. Then, finally, when the cat gets annoying enough, we put the food from the pourable container into the cat’s bowl.

It’s the same stuff. It’s all cat food. But to make the cat food usable, we go through a process of storing it and pouring it.

We do the same thing with knowledge. We have to put it in lots of different “containers” before we can truly understand it. And it’s useful to think about the process of getting knowledge from the big box that is the world into the small bottle that is our mind.

Sincerely,

Mr. Heimbuck