Blindly running from Ignorance

It occurred to me that I and many others, I assume, don’t like feeling like, or realising that we are ignorant. 

Now I am talking ignorant in the sense of "not knowing", not in its pejorative sense or of wilful ignorance.

Who has not had their ego stroked by someone turning to you, asking you a question while staring expectantly into your face?  Who has not felt the compliment of having everyone hanging on your every pronouncement?

Professionals, like doctors , lawyers or teachers fall foul of this, they get asked so many times a day about the area of their expertise that it is hard to shake off this role when it comes to other areas where knowledge might be lacking.

We fear simply saying "I don’t know". 

This idea entirely irrational, the more we learn, the more we realise that we know so very little, that it is impossible to be knowledgeable on everything or even on  most things.

But when we admit we don’t know, we are stepping down from a pedestal, from a position of power and I don’t think we as humans like losing that power.

Another point to consider is, that when we make assertions based upon our own personal feeling or opinion rather than on solid evidence/knowledge we are committing a small injustice, we are preventing ourselves and perhaps others from discovering the facts, from actually investigating for ourselves.

We are encouraging ourselves and others to be lazy thinkers.

When we run blindly from anything we usually end up in trouble.

So we need to get comfortable with stopping, taking a deep breath and saying

"I don’t know…yet"

Thanks to PhillyChief for inspiration by way of the Zarathustra Test

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