Know the smallest things and the biggest things, the shallowest things and the deepest things. As if it were a straight road mapped out on the ground ... These things cannot be explained in detail. From one thing, know ten thousand things. When you attain the Way of strategy there will not be one thing you cannot see. You must study hard
Mushashi.
The ultimate goal of humankind is to know things. The rest is it’s application. It is the final frontier. Martin Schuster once said something that has taken me a lifetime to understand.
There is much that I do not know and I'd like to know even less.
After Medical school and residency, I knew everything about Medicine. Time passed and I know more. With each passing year in practice I grew stronger and stronger. When I added teaching to my practice nobody in the world knew more than me. If you google Alpha Omega society of university of South Carolina, you will my name listed. I have dearly held on to the chair I received.
Wisdom began to take hold. With every piece of new knowledge came the revelation of how little I really know. With all the might and fury of an Intensivist, I have many a times stood at the bedside of a sick patient and lost the battle. The might and fury dwindled into the smallness of a defeated warrior.
The more I learned, the less I knew. On one hand I have the power of modern medicine and on the other hand the ever expanding myths of Medical sciences that we don’t have any answers for. With time when you learn one thing, you realize that there are ten thousand things yet to be known. The knowing of not having enough knowledge is cruel. The better we get at knowing what is known, the better we get at knowing how much we don’t know. That is the irony of science. That is our struggle in science and in life. The quest will go on long after me but will we ever know it all?
I have always loved Mushshi’s teachings. “From one thing know ten thousand things.” Time and again I have turned to the most basic understandings in human physiology to figure out how to apply my skills better at bedside. My advice to all seeking skill in their craft is simple. Learn the simplest foundations and basics of your craft very very well. Sooner or later you will realize that everything else is just an extension of the basic knowledge. Lay the foundation stone as well as you can. Know the simplest things with the greatest authority. The rest will come easy.
N . Inayet MD FCCP
