Image by peasap via Flickr
Say what?
It is a truism to say that you don’t know what you don’t know. The response is almost certainly “Duh!”.
But underneath the statement is a zenlike undertow. What you don’t know is the Road less traveled or not traveled at all. It is the possibilities that never even cross your mind. It is the difference between ordinary and outrageous. But how do you embrace and find what you don’t know? And once you know something that you formerly didn’t know, what difference does it make since there is still the immense universe of everything that you still don’t know? At least that is something that I know I don’t know.
The Secret to Life
I think if there is a secret of life, it may be this. Start each day with a mission to learn something new. Be open to learning things that are outside the boundaries of your norms. Learn new things that raise questions about all the truths that you know now.
I don’t have much wisdom here to share. I stumble around trying to live my adventure. Today as I stumbled, my mind turned to limericks and I recalled the advice I received about writing bad poetry.
And now- Bad Poetry
The result is two limericks, my favorite type of poetry which shows you how limited are my aesthetic sensitivities . Let me know which you prefer.
You don’t know what you don’t know, it’s true
But the stuff you do know can hurt too
Should you learn and research
Or live blind, fall and lurch
It’s a quandry beyond me, so sue.
You don’t know what you don’t know, but wait
Does the stuff you know now fill your plate
It’s a tricky conundrum
Pick the new or the humdrum
Still, what you don’t know seals your fate.
I will try to get my head straight for Tuesday.
I rather like the comparison of “You don’t know what you don’t know” to “the road less traveled”. It makes learning, or rather deciding to learn, easier in a couple of ways.
First it overcomes man’s most restricting emotion, fear, especially fear of the unknown. “You don’t know what you don’t know” describes an emptiness, a void, something totally unknown and thus fear inducing.
Looking at it as simply “the road less traveled” makes it just another of myriad possibilities, all equally valid and all full of the same possibilities of success or failure.
Bob,
At this point in my life, I’m good with anything that works at paring down the mass of stuff I don’t know I don’t know. What scares me is how bad it may hurt when I find out why I should know.
Ahhh..but Ralph, that’s the cool part of being an old fart. Pick something…ANYTHING..that you don’t know that you don’t know…
It simply doesn’t matter! Knowing it now is a matter of choice, not necessity. For example, right now a 25 year old Luddite, much like I was (and there are a few young ones) who didn’t know that what he didn’t know about computers would suffer greatly for that lack of knowledge…but at our age it doesn’t matter. The lack of technical knowledge may frustrate us, and we can fix it if we CHOOSE to, not because we have to to play catch up.
What we don’t know used to matter in the grand scheme of things. Now it matters just to us, and we can fix it…or not…depending on what WE want, not what the world wants of us.
So, It’s never too late?
“What we don’t know used to matter in the grand scheme of things. Now it matters just to us, and we can fix it…or not…depending on what WE want, not what the world wants of us.”
That’s some pretty good boiled peanut philosophy. Actually, in my book that’s some pretty darned good philosophy period.
Maybe I need to retire too.
I’ve concluded that retire is an obsolete word. It needs to be something that means ‘ finally taking charge of my life’.
To be a KMA jackass like me? Hell no! The older you are the easier it is.
You don’t know what you don’t know, big deal.
It’s not like anything they can steal
Possibly a conundrum
And this may sound real dumb
Tis only a turn of the karmic wheel.
Thanks for the info on Alexis scores.
Hansi’s last Blog Post ..Dear Hansi
Hansi,
You too can write bad poetry.
Hope that’s not an encouragement Ralph.
Hansi’s last Blog Post ..Dear Hansi
Of course it is.