I sometimes feel that I am a rather arrogant person: I have opinions on a lot of things, and I claim to know a lot. And I brandish whatever knowledge I have left, right and center. It is a weapon to make people believe you, make them look at you like an expert.
But there is really no point in being an expert. Knowledge closes one's mind, in some way. It seals off questions about some things, it seals away doubts that might crop up now and then, and it erodes one's wonder. Less time, then, is spent in being surprised, and more in being annoyed. You get adept at debating, with the flurry of facts and truths you have at your disposal, yet you slowly lose the opportunity to debate with yourself.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with knowledge itself, only in how you choose to use it. I find more and more that I am using it to win debates. Of course, the point of a debate is never to win, and it is good to understand that. Even if the debate is about a factual claim. There is no point to a debate unless you can take something back from it, and if you are in it for the winning, then you aren't gaining anything from it. You have just closed your mind and are standing guard on the fortress of your beliefs, externally very confident but internally insecure because you are so used to your beliefs being right that all you can think of is the chaos that will ensue if you are indeed wrong.
The key issue, then, is not to gain more knowledge as time goes on, but to stay perpetually ignorant, in some sense. To constantly find new ways of asking questions, new ways of being wrong. To realize that no matter how much you know, there is always the infinite amount you dont know and will never know. And to focus on the ignorance: we are after all a tiny species on an insignificant planet around a nondescript star in a vast universe, and we will always be tiny, we will always be insignificant. There is no "enlightenment" that will open all knowledge to us, the only enlightenment is the realization perhaps that we can never be completely right, only less wrong.
And there is no harm in being ignorant, or wrong. There is a charm, a beauty in discovery, and its only the discovery that is beautiful, never the knowledge. There is a beauty in looking at something happening, or listening to someone speak, and feeling the slow flame of understanding getting kindled in your head. There is also a beauty in being wrong, in being on the "losing" side of a debate. Because arguably, the "losing" side stands to gain so much more: a whole new point of view..
But there is really no point in being an expert. Knowledge closes one's mind, in some way. It seals off questions about some things, it seals away doubts that might crop up now and then, and it erodes one's wonder. Less time, then, is spent in being surprised, and more in being annoyed. You get adept at debating, with the flurry of facts and truths you have at your disposal, yet you slowly lose the opportunity to debate with yourself.
Of course, there is nothing wrong with knowledge itself, only in how you choose to use it. I find more and more that I am using it to win debates. Of course, the point of a debate is never to win, and it is good to understand that. Even if the debate is about a factual claim. There is no point to a debate unless you can take something back from it, and if you are in it for the winning, then you aren't gaining anything from it. You have just closed your mind and are standing guard on the fortress of your beliefs, externally very confident but internally insecure because you are so used to your beliefs being right that all you can think of is the chaos that will ensue if you are indeed wrong.
The key issue, then, is not to gain more knowledge as time goes on, but to stay perpetually ignorant, in some sense. To constantly find new ways of asking questions, new ways of being wrong. To realize that no matter how much you know, there is always the infinite amount you dont know and will never know. And to focus on the ignorance: we are after all a tiny species on an insignificant planet around a nondescript star in a vast universe, and we will always be tiny, we will always be insignificant. There is no "enlightenment" that will open all knowledge to us, the only enlightenment is the realization perhaps that we can never be completely right, only less wrong.
And there is no harm in being ignorant, or wrong. There is a charm, a beauty in discovery, and its only the discovery that is beautiful, never the knowledge. There is a beauty in looking at something happening, or listening to someone speak, and feeling the slow flame of understanding getting kindled in your head. There is also a beauty in being wrong, in being on the "losing" side of a debate. Because arguably, the "losing" side stands to gain so much more: a whole new point of view..
2 comments:
Very true.. Humility marks the difference between happiness and the rest..
Wonderfully expressive- "standing guard on the fortress of your beliefs, externally very confident but internally insecure".
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