There are two types of knowing: emotional knowledge and intellectual knowledge. The two can overlap, but the overlap is surprisingly small. We know something intellectually when we’ve read it or heard it or been taught it from a reputable source. Knowing something intellectually, you can answer questions about it on a quiz. You have an emotional grasp on something when it’s built into your very personality or intuition. Usually, this is type of understanding is acquired through direct personal experience; it’s also possible to acquire emotional knowledge through deliberate meditation or contemplation.
As an example, consider the president of the United States. Right now as I write these words, the president is Barack Obama. I know that emotionally: it’s intuitive. If I saw the man on the street, I’d immediately recognize him and know he was the president. Contrast that with the president in the year 1847. James Polk. For most people alive today, that’s intellectual knowledge, at best. If you know it at all, it’s probably as a piece of trivia. If Polk came here in a time machine and you got in an argument with him on the street, you wouldn’t recognize him and wouldn’t alter your behavior in the same way you would if it were Barack.
Here are some other examples:
* “One day, I’ll die.” Almost everyone understands this, and yet for most of us, it has no bearing on our personality. If you’re in busy traffic and your kids are crying in the backseat and someone’s calling you on the cellphone and some idiot behind you is honking her horn, your mortality is probably the last thing on your mind. This fact usually falls into the intellectual knowledge category. Sometimes, it can be emotional knowledge as well. Tibetan Buddhist monks meditate for long periods of time on their own mortality. Doing so has beneficial effects on the personality, making one live one’s life in a more present, meaningful way.
* “The derivative of sine is cosine.” Again, if you know this, it’s probably just intellectual knowledge. On the other hand, if you’re an applied mathematician, the process of computing derivatives is so second nature that this factoid can actually become intuitive, to the point where you “see” it effortlessly.
* How to walk. This is an example of knowledge which is almost purely emotional. Unless you actually study it, you probably can’t explain the precise details (I know I can’t). It’s surprisingly hard to even think up a satisfactory dictionary definition for the word, “walk”. And yet, it’s intuitive. Unless you’re a baby or physically incapable of walking, walking is absolutely an integral part of your very personality. No matter how busy and distracted you are at work, you never suddenly forget how to walk (though, it is kind of funny to imagine a worker running around so frantically he forgets how to run:))
* What country you live in. A perfect example of something which falls into both classes simultaneously. Unlike the precise physical explanation of walking, you probably wouldn’t have any trouble at all if I asked you what country you live in. If it were on a test, it’d be a breeze. At the same time, it’s not something you forget when you’re distracted or busy. It’s something built deeply into your personality.
* God exists. For some people, this fact is emotionally true. For some, it’s emotionally false. Intellectually, it’s not a well-posed question: it’s unfalsifiable and unverifiable, at least in this lifetime.
Often, we fail to benefit from a piece of information because we have it stored in the wrong way: we fail to learn it emotionally. This is why you can’t become a guitarist just by reading books about guitar. Music is something which must be carved into your very intuition. Maybe you’re a computer programmer and you read about a great trick. That’s cool, but it isn’t going to make you a better programmer until you actually practice it to the point where you’re whipping it out unconsciously. In the seduction community, guys can read advice about picking up girls all day and night, but yet still shut down when they actually encounter a girl: a real life encounter is not remotely like an academic test.
If you don’t want to practice for months or years, and you don’t want to become a Tibetan monk, there’s a great shortcut to taking intellectual knowing and making it emotional: write, write, write!
FURTHER READING
How to be a Better Conversationalist
Trivial Knowledge
Privileged Information
Conscious and Subconscious Mind