“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.”
– John Muir, My First Summer in the Sierra
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“So the equation works like this: the more I learn, the less I know. Yes, more is less. That’s the way it works in my mind. And it applies to all of us, not just me. For me, that’s the secret to a big part of my life and how I became who I am.”
– Georges St Pierre, The Way of the Fight
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The more I read, the more I know, but the less certain I am about what I know.
Like stripping paint: the satisfaction of taking off a layer of ignorance, only to be confronted by a hidden layer. When you strip that, another layer is revealed. The infinite layers of ignorance.
And you also learn that everything is connected, that knowledge in isolation is pretty much worthless. What you know needs to adapt to the demands of the real world which are random and limitless.
The only time knowledge thrives in isolation is during school when we are assessed on individual subjects which never interact. But life is not subject specific. It is rich and interconnected.
My ignorance reveals itself in layers. That is why I try to avoid declarative statements. How can I say something is true, or the best, when it is likely there is information yet to be revealed to me that would have me change my mind.
It’s a nice personal philosophy: to be openly ignorant, counterbalanced with being openly curious.
The only problem is, there’s no end to my ignorance. I cannot set a goal of being fully informed.
The only choice is to keep an open mind and keep moving forward.
Conversations With Quotations 