Research as Understanding ∙ Kanjun Qiu

When our goal is to understand something, we start getting curious: why does this work this way, and not that way? Why doesn't this do what I expected? Strange! These observations of strangeness, where pieces of the understanding puzzle don't fit, lead to exploring beyond what's known.

research is simply a continuation of something we already naturally do: learning. Learning happens when you understand something that someone else already understands. Research happens when you understand something that nobody else understands yet.

Viewed as a way to understand reality more deeply, suddenly research shifts from something intimidating to something beautiful, this process of slowly feeling the inner workings of the universe come into focus, clicking into place, a blossoming of clarity suffusing, igniting the jungle of neurons traversing my mind, until I can finally see.

Research, I realized, is what happens as a byproduct when you try to understand something and hit the bounds of what humanity currently knows