The Path of Recognizing How Little We Know: Part 1

I know that I know nothing.

Socrates

One of the paths to humility I find particularly useful is to stop and think about how little I truly know. Let me walk you through it. First of all, think about all the things you know you don’t know. You don’t know what’s going to happen to you after you die (although you may subscribe to one belief or another). You don’t know what’s going to happen to you in the next moment. You don’t know if you’ll be alive at the end of this sentence. You don’t know the origin of life.

Now think of the things you think you do know. My wife likes to watch Ancient Aliens on the history channel. I get a kick out of this, especially when I see the guy whose hair looks like he just put his finger in a light socket! I laugh as the narrator in his deep, serious voice talks about the beliefs of “ancient alien theorists” — who happen to be the same 5 guys who talk about a range of events that “prove” we’ve been visited by extra-terrestrials.

But when I stop laughing, it occurs to me that maybe, just maybe, these people are right. Maybe life on Earth DID begin from some alien being. Maybe they DID build the pyramids. When I humble myself in this way, I can almost accept the possibility that the guys on the ghost shows my wife watches (she has a much more open mind than I) are actually recording paranormal activity on the little Geiger counters they carry around to measure that stuff.

Almost.

Another way of realizing how little we know is to think about the stupid stuff we used to believe. When I was 10, my friends and I would spend our time waiting for a tennis court engaged in scholarly debates over the various properties of Wilson tennis balls. We noted, for example, that Wilson 3s were less bouncy than Wilson 6s, and that the even-numbered balls lasted longer than the odd-numbered ones. The sons of scientists, we approached the topic with all of the brilliance and vigor you would expect of our big-brained fathers, holding a regular Algonquin Table on the subject. Yet it never occurred to us that the numbers MEANT ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AT ALL! Wilson simply put different numbers on their balls so that people on adjacent courts would know whose balls were whose.

Today’s Challenge: Think back to your childhood and think of the things you used to hold as Gospel truth but you now know are patently false. If you didn’t have ludicrous discussions about tennis balls, remember what you thought about Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. Or where you thought babies came from. Then remember that much of what you think is true right now will turn out to be false. Let go of false solidity and humble yourself accordingly.