“Consider your origins: You were not made to live as brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge” (Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy, Inferno, Canto XXVI)

We are living a great cultural shift toward a savvier quest for knowledge. The verses of Dante seem to fit it perfectly.

To succeed and thrive in this new era, it is fundamental to continually learn, experience, and relearn. An investment in knowledge pays the best interest, however, few people realise it. Learning is the best investment of our time that we can make.

While arguing about the importance of learning, there are two important facts that we need to consider, that are the rapid demonetisation of physical resources and the overthrow of matter.

In technology, economics, and politics, wealth in the form of physical resources is steadily declining in value and significance, while we are witnessing a rapid demonetisation. Indeed, knowledge and technology are gradually rendering previously expensive products or services gradually much cheaper (or even free in some cases), thus radically changing the relationship between knowledge and value.

For example, automated vehicle fleets will eliminate the need to own a car, one of our biggest purchases in a lifetime. Higher educational institutions are finding new ways to lower their costs by offering services online, focussing on in-demand training and high-paying skills, and also having employers who recruit students and subsidise the cost of tuition. In the entertainment sector, virtual reality is making expensive experiences, such as going to a concert, instantaneously available at much lower cost. In the healthcare sector, costs have been increasing, but innovation in these fields will likely also lead to eventual demonetisation.

It does not mean that these products or services provide less value to customers. In contrast, in some cases the improved quality and rapidity create additional value to them. It means that they are going to be demonetised and that the relationship between the knowledge and value created is gradually changing.

This process will accelerate in the future: the power of knowledge is everywhere ascending over physical resources, and knowledge itself is gradually becoming an important and unique form of currency.

Indeed, knowledge serves as a medium of exchange and store of value, similarly to traditional currency. However, unlike the latter, when we use it, we do not lose it. The more we give knowledge away, the more we connect other ideas, remember and deeply understand them. Transferring knowledge anywhere in the world is free and instant, and it values compounds over time faster than money.

For example, knowledge can be converted into many things that money cannot buy, such as authentic relationships and higher levels of well-being. It puts our experiences into perspective, helping us live many different lives through the experiences of other people. Furthermore, it helps us think bigger and beyond the circumstances, while accomplishing our personal and professional goals faster and better.

The new illiterates will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot constantly learn and relearn through their own experiences and those of others.

Many times, we have been told to focus on specific groups of skills and competences while avoiding scattered knowledge and multitasking in our professional paths. However, hyper-specialisation is not the best strategy, and we can be more innovative and find greater happiness by cultivating a variety of interests and activities, while using both the creative talent of the right brain and the analytic capabilities of the left brain. For example, we might have a great interest in disciplines like management or economics, but also in music, meditation, or spiritual research.

There is no reason why the same person cannot do both well. In addition, hyper-specialised people are more at risk with job automation, even for managerial jobs and many other intellectual professions.

People with a variety of skills and many interests are becoming more valuable in the modern economy and tend to have a more fulfilling, rich, and stimulating lives.