Not Knowing
One thing I know is that I know nothing.
–Socrates
Socrates was talking about what it means to be wise. He said the only thing that made him wiser than his peers was, simply, knowing what he didn’t know. He didn’t pretend otherwise. He didn’t talk out of his ass.
Refreshing, isn’t it? How often do you have conversations in which a person’s knowledge of a subject isn’t even passable, yet they officiate as if they were an expert?
But this “knowing” isn’t always a blessing, and when I discovered it it almost ruined me. Ignorance might be bliss, but awareness of your own can be torture.
The problem was one of magnitude. I thought that, even if I read thousands of books, I was still an idiot, relatively speaking. I was overwhelmed by futility and froze like a deer in headlights. I had no idea where to start. So I didn’t. No reading. Lots of partying though.
I am pretty smart by most measures. You know what that got me? Read above, and you’ll have your answer:
Fancier ways of being lazy.
What does it take to stop worrying about everything you don’t know and can’t do? I don’t know the answer, but I bet if I read three books a week, starting right now, I’ll have a pretty good idea. Fuck moderation, if I’m going to become an idiot, I’ll do it faster than the next guy.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
The sheer overwhelm that comes with the moment which we realize how little we know is enough to cripple the most intellectual of giants. We all struggle with this. I’ve found a positive take on it that might help you. When you enter into an academic course on an area of study, the boundaries are manageable and well-defined. When you tackle a new area of study independently, the blurry boundaries are maddening. Each reading/study session presents opportunities for exploring new topics, cited books, opposing viewpoints and more. When you embrace how any one area of interest can lead down countless paths, you, like Socrates, become aware of what you do not know. This is liberating. You now can decide to only explore what fascinates you rather than just trying to consume everything pertinent to the topic. You focus. You discriminate and read only what intrigues you, and have no qualms about skipping the pieces you find irrelevant.
Knowing how much we may never truly know is beautiful. It gives us permission to only learn what we love and what can be applied as a means to our individual ends. Forget learning everything, even everything on one topic. Just truly learn what you love and be content that you always know how to seek out all that which you have not yet learned.
After reading Clay’s post today, I’m starting to realize where all the time and lack of knowledge came from. TV sucked it away. Books are the answer we have been looking for. I’m on a furious pace now to rid myself of ignorance. Man it’s hard. So much to absorb.
http://www.herecomeseverybody.org/2008/04/looking-for-the-mouse.html
Reading, watching TV, watching sports, etc.–these events are only wasteful if you choose to make them wasteful. If you are discussing what you’re seeing, if you are synthesizing what is good from bad, if you are making an active effort to understand the events around you, then it’s not that bad.
This comment could be pretty idiotic. But it’s better than not commenting at all.
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