Confusion is, paradoxically, a desirable state for anyone who wants to have breakthroughs in life. After all, if I fully understand something, I have no need to learn anything else. Hence, no breakthroughs… I know this about myself: once I get an answer, I stop the process of being fully engaged with the question. I am really starting to recognize the value of the engagement process itself… and I’m finding that this is at least as rewarding (as a process), if not more, than receiving the “right” answers. When I put myself at the mercy of the mystery of the unknown, I have something at stake. I am invested in my own process of learning. When I am willing to “not know” something, I can become “hungry” for it. I am then able to open myself up to the “potentiality” of receiving new knowledge. Until I allow this kind of vulnerability, I simply limit my opportunities for knowledge and wisdom.

If I am walking around in a perpetual state of “I’m supposed to know it all already,” then I am only robbing myself of ever knowing the stuff I don’t yet know, and dooming myself to a life of “not knowing.” The act of pretending I know something when I don’t is the causal factor in my not gaining that knowledge. In other words, I walk around in a state of ignorance, and I act like I’m not. Worse yet, because I have to keep up a façade of “looking as though” I have the knowledge when I actually don’t have it, I set up a catch-22 that can only self-fulfill on my never becoming willing to learn it.

Think about it: the only way I’d be willing to learn something new is if I admitted that I have been walking around living a fraudulent life. If I did this, I would be admitting my own ignorance! How many people do we know who are walking around admitting their own ignorance? It just isn’t a very common occurrence! And yet, this is the paradox of it all. When I am not willing to accept and allow my own ignorance, I cannot seek out the remedy to it. So the absurdity is that in order to become less ignorant, we must begin with being ignorant. When we don’t allow for this, we only become the masters of our own ignorance. Not a very smart way to live, don’t you agree?

And remember, ignorance is not the same thing as stupidity.  In fact, if we carry this out to its logical conclusion, then a person who lives his or her life willing to be ignorant, is a person who is unwilling to live a life of ignorance. I believe that is the opposite of stupidity.  

Here’s to Moving Beyond Survival ~

Liza