Ryan Holiday’s At the Core of It, posted yesterday, drew a connection for me today—

I’m just saying that when you really look at it—and I mean really look at it, as in the facts and figures and averages—the things we think are important are comical. Intellectually, it’s time you admit to yourself that it’s all a big fucking farce.

Ryan points out a few examples of incorrectly assigning value to the superficial—-nice cars, fancy job titles, quotes in the New York Times. He reveals the ugly interior under the gilded surface of our world. I found myself thinking about the opposite: the glimmer of hope underneath it all.

I learned while doing research about Crossfit that building strength is a much more complicated affair than just making your muscles bigger. For instance, the neural system plays a huge role in strength potential. By being able to recruit muscle fibers more quickly and synchronously, athletes can lift more without getting bigger. This is huge for sports where weight is critical—mountain climbing, biking, and martial arts come to mind. The guys in the gym doing reps of curls until their biceps don’t fit in their shirts will never be real athletes.

Norman Borlaug, agronomist, has saved an estimated 245 million lives worldwide source because of his contributions to plant genetics. Instead of trying to build bigger tractors and more complicated irrigation systems, he focused on understanding the biology of the wheat he was growing. His team bred disease-resistant, high-yield wheat that sparked the Green Revolution, allowing the population explosion of recent years. No wonder he is only one of five people in history to have won the Nobel Peace Prize, Congressional Gold Medal, and Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Rarely is true value to be found at the surface of things. To contribute the extraordinary to the world means to understand what drives phenomena better than anyone else. It also means being vigilant, never assuming that what you’re given is the whole truth. Don’t get distracted by “lies, exaggerations, flippant responses, or rationalizations.” Instead, cultivate a curiosity for the mechanisms that underlie your world.