“I know enough now, to know, that I don’t know anything.”
You may have heard someone say that, or maybe you have. Maybe it has just lingered, as a thought, in the back of your disbelieving mind. Or, you realized that everything you thought you knew, hasn’t been enough to see you through what’s facing you now. However, you have come to this insight, you just came to the leading-edge of wisdom. It can happen to anyone, but it most often comes to old people, those who have been humbled by a long life. That is one of the reasons older people are considered to be wise. Life has worked some of them over, and conferred on some of them, a reverence for mystery.
A long time ago, so the story goes, Socrates got in trouble. He was charged with corrupting the young, and tried by his peers, the citizens of Athens. In this ancient Greek story, Socrates was found guilty, and ended his own life by drinking hemlock. He realized that he was doomed to be an irritating gadfly, challenging the self-satisfying knowledge of his fellow citizens. His awareness, that he didn’t know, was toxic to his society, and the source of both his wisdom and unpopularity.
Wisdom came from his not knowing. His knowing he didn’t know, elevated his awareness, and pretty much assured his fate. His neighbors didn’t recognize and welcome a view that went beyond their own. They proved that being wise can be dangerous. Socrates knew too much, by not knowing. He became the embodiment of wisdom, and it was his commitment to integrity that led to his death — and revealed the connection between not knowing and wisdom.
So, why is any of this important? I don’t know, maybe because linking not knowing with wisdom is interesting, and having an example of how wisdom (not knowing) can be risky, suggests another reason why real wisdom may be so rare. Not knowing is frowned on in this culture. Expertise is valued. It goes beyond wanting a knowledgeable brain surgeon, to an insistence that creativity follows laws. There isn’t room in the market place for not knowing, and so wisdom isn’t valued as it should be.
There is a paradox at the doorway to wisdom. To access the place of mysterious awareness, one must give up knowing. Typically, that paradox is too daunting for most people. Old folks, on the other hand, are being taught by Life, the essential skill of letting go. They, by virtue of heading toward disappearance, are busy surrendering — this includes giving up knowing — of being certain of anything. It is part of being stripped down, and preparing for what is to come.
Giving up knowing can feel like loss. Gaining wisdom isn’t always something one wants. Losing is a humiliating process. In this culture it often means becoming less. For this reason, one of the hallmarks of wisdom is humility, along with not knowing, the wise frequently appear as anything but knowledgeable. Gaining wisdom, the capacity to not know, is such a harrowing reversal, that almost no one seeks it out. Wisdom, much like aging, is a surprise, not the outcome of some practice. It comes with the mysterious wind of evolution.
The unknown is a benefactor. Not knowing is the root of all knowing, it is the heart of wisdom, which always goes beyond what we know. When you feel yourself relying on what you know, then hubris is much more likely to be what’s happening.
Wisdom is really needed in this crumbling time, and what we don’t know is more likely to bring us to the unexpected than anything. Surprise is the best indicator. Evolution wears many guises.
No comments:
Post a Comment