I’ve gotten better at saying “I don’t know”, or “that rings a bell, but I’m not sure, can you remind me”, or “what does that word mean?”. Because I was The Smart Kid™ at school and I carried that on by heading to a prestigious university, I had a hell of a complex about looking stupid. Being smart was so tightly woven into my identity that I struggled to perceive myself outside of a framework of academic success or the nebulous idea of intelligence.
I got a hell of a lot smarter when I learned how to not know stuff though, because I got to learn unexpected things from unexpected sources. I worked on reframing my own intelligence/knowledge wrt my self view, and nowadays, I feel like the thing I’m most proud of is my curiosity, and my openness to learning new stuff.
Was it not Socrates who was told by the Oracle of Delphi that he was the wisest for he proclaimed he knew nothing at all? That parable(?) always stuck with me and although I tried to practice it beforehand, it’s a good reminder that the universe is so vast and we are so insignificantly small. Our entire human knowledge pales woefully in comparison to the breadth of what exists. I only wish I could see it all.
I’ve gotten better at saying “I don’t know”, or “that rings a bell, but I’m not sure, can you remind me”, or “what does that word mean?”. Because I was The Smart Kid™ at school and I carried that on by heading to a prestigious university, I had a hell of a complex about looking stupid. Being smart was so tightly woven into my identity that I struggled to perceive myself outside of a framework of academic success or the nebulous idea of intelligence.
I got a hell of a lot smarter when I learned how to not know stuff though, because I got to learn unexpected things from unexpected sources. I worked on reframing my own intelligence/knowledge wrt my self view, and nowadays, I feel like the thing I’m most proud of is my curiosity, and my openness to learning new stuff.
Was it not Socrates who was told by the Oracle of Delphi that he was the wisest for he proclaimed he knew nothing at all? That parable(?) always stuck with me and although I tried to practice it beforehand, it’s a good reminder that the universe is so vast and we are so insignificantly small. Our entire human knowledge pales woefully in comparison to the breadth of what exists. I only wish I could see it all.