The Quest for Knowledge

Hello. My name is Lin, and I’m addicted to studying.

My behaviour is derived from the Master Workaholic, my father, who had two businesses and worked 24/7. He never learned to play. Work absorbed his every waking moment, and as I grew up, I learned the same thing from him. In my case “work” came in the form of study. I studied because I knew nothing else. I was a dedicated student from the age of about nine onwards, and by the age of thirteen I was doing four hours homework a night. I worked and obsessed through many qualifications, two degrees and beyond, and nowadays it's just become a habit, a hobby, a compulsion, who I am. It’s not money that’s the lure, it’s knowledge. I crave it to the exclusion of all else. And I mean ALL.

In our house, it’s well known that Mum doesn’t play computer or other games. Mum works during the day, and she studies for fun. And yes, learning is fun for me as well as an addiction. I’ve realised that I really do love what I do the vast majority of the time. I can't really explain how much of a rush it can all be, and yet how much it can drain and exhaust you as well.

And yet…there’s a nagging doubt that something isn’t quite right with this life-study-work ethic. My kids tell me to “get a life,” they think that learning is a form of work not play, that it’s weird that their mother gets “obsessions” with studying particular subjects, and that the quest to know everything about them absorbs every waking moment. My friends sigh and half-heartedly tell me to teach myself to play, and I’ll kill myself eventually if I keep up this pace forever. And I’d like to be able to take holidays too, and enjoy them (I endure vacations, I do try to enjoy them I promise, but I get so bloody bored lying by the pool, I usually want to shoot myself by the end of day two.)

Culturally, we Britons study all our childhoods, and work very long hours in our adult lives. It is both expected and encouraged to do so. Unfortunately, like alcoholism, workaholism is bad for you. Subjecting your body to that level of stress for many years will definitely have consequences for your body (yup!) It makes people neglect families, relationships and their health, and workaholics are usually in a state of denial about the impact of their behaviour (guilty on every count.)

So what do I do? I don’t want to end up like my father, who retired at 55, but was dead by 57 because his life was suddenly empty without work. I can see my brother (who at 60 is still working 80 hour weeks) going the same way. Even though I know it is bad for me and those around me, changing my behaviour (yes I’ve tried) makes me wholly miserable. I have become my father. I’ve spent a lifetime addicted to the drug “workahol” and I must change before the burning quest for acquiring knowledge eventually wrecks me.

The grand irony is of course, that the answer to life’s ultimate questions, “Is that all that I am? Is there nothing more?” almost certainly can’t be found through study, or books or rusty academia, but by learning to play and actually living life rather than observing it.

So if I know this already, then why the hell can’t I quit?



Roswell Ivory, from last year.