Knowing what you don't

Life's full of little lessons.  One of them is learning to recognize not only what you do know, but what you don't.

I can't begin to count the number of times I've been bitten by this.  Sometimes I've gotten away with it.  Other times, though, I've spoken -- whether out loud, or online, or wherever -- and, sure enough, someone who knew more came right in and said "That's not so, and here's why."  Once in a while, they're not right.  But, sometimes, they are.  The trick is in tamping down your ego enough to give them a hearing, to see if what they say passes the sniff test, to check out the evidence. 

I've never made any bones about what I do.  I was a minor-league newspaper reporter.  I didn't work for a big daily paper; I worked for a weekly whose trail from printing press to birdcage liner could probably be measured with a stopwatch.  Before that, I worked in radio, doing little grunt jobs at the station.  I've published some things here and there.  I accidented my way into higher education.  I fell into communications and journalism, and I'm having a blast there, but if I had my druthers, I'd be a research librarian or an archivist.  I have a craftsman's mindset, and I'd rather sit in the back and put great effort into creating little masterpieces than be out front and on top.

And I also grew up being reminded that I didn't know everything.  That's one of the weird blessings of my upbringing.  It was impressive that I could name all the Presidents when I was in second grade, but my parents were just as concerned that I knew the things they felt were important.  They never wanted me to lose sight of little things, little essential skills.  And my family -- both the extended elements and the nucleus -- never let me get high on my own knowledge, or above my raisin'.  And they reminded me that, no, no matter what you think, you don't know everything, and you should never believe you do.  From an early age, it was driven home to me that arrogance is a deadly sin.

As I've gone through life, I've frequently been the first to puncture my own balloon, or to admit a flaw in an argument, or to concede a point.  But I remain boggled by how many people I come across who are convinced they are absolutely, positively correct.  About everything.  Point out an inconsistency and they take it personally.  Disagree with them, and it means war.  You may as well have personally attacked them.  They don't recognize that, in some ways, those kinds of admissions can add to your credibility.  Nope, instead, it's all about them and their proclaimed right to not be wrong, to be on top and unchallenged and unchallengeable.

And that's...pretty bad.  That's not the kind of person I want to be.  And it's not the kind of company I want to keep.  There are all kinds of stories about arrogance costing people friendships, costing them jobs, sometimes even costing them their lives.  ("Ah, this ain't nothin' to worry about!  Only a wimp would worry about --" [followed by "sound of impact/end of recording"])

Yes, I know that I know a lot.  That's good.  But I'm also painfully aware of how much I don't know.  I'm also aware there are a lot of people out there who know more about certain things than I do.  The only things I really feel qualified to act as an expert on -- and even then, with certain qualifications -- are the things of, and related to, my own life.  I have a fancy title at my workplace.  I have a really fabulous education, with a couple of mildly expensive graduate degrees.  But it doesn't mean I'm any smarter or wiser than I was before.  If anything, it's made me more aware of what I don't know.

Somehow, though, the awareness of what you don't know sometimes has more power than what you do know.  And, often, it's what keeps you out of really bad situations.

Comments

[Warren]

I'm fond of a comment from an old prof of mine: "A professor becomes dangerous at the instant he or she ceases to feel like a fraud."