It all begins with this simple saying of mine: Life is always more than your expectations and assumptions. Most of my life was about inquiry and curiosity. I was never much satisfied with the answers i got when i was a children. I was never solving the same questions that i already know how to get the answer in tests while studying for university. I was always trying to write a solution to a coding problem with multiple ways in computer engineering in university. After that, around 24 years old or so, i was almost able to write the half of my blog content already, i just didn't have a blog until i was 30. It wasn't because i was smarter than other people, i can't claim this so easily. It wasn't because i read a lot of books, which in reality i didn't read much. It was because always asking for more in life. I had the strange appetite that was never satisfied and it help me accumulate a lot more than usual people gather in life. I always asked "what more is there" because i acknowledged the "unknown". This is the philosophy of not knowing.
There are differences between knowledge, intelligence and wisdom. Knowledge can be acquired by any means and by anyone, assuming a person having a normal functioning brain. Intelligence helps acquiring more knowledge and connecting links among them. You can do that faster if you have a stronger intelligence and intelligence can occur in different areas. You can't find a person looking smart on every subject in life. These are all bound on concrete information. But wisdom is being able to operate on situations without having the full knowledge and still hitting the target. Wisdom is experience added to knowledge. It also has an intuition part in it. So do i say i have wisdom? A little bit, yes :)
Again, just because i claim i have some wisdom, doesn't mean i claim i am better than other people. I don't have wisdom in all aspects of life. But the wisdom that i have acquired is definitely built on top of the philosophy of not knowing. It doesn't require constant questioning, which can lead to burnout. It doesn't require constant doubt, which can lead to unproductive paranoia. All it requires is embracing the unknown and not being afraid of it. You also don't have to assume that you know nothing, which can lead to very low self esteem. Just keep your channels open, that is all.
This philosophy of not knowing is also about conclusions. This sounds crazy to you but i would say never ever conclude anything in life ever. Now you would ask, then what am i going to base my actions on? That is the tricky part. Your brain must act like a machine more than a registry. Whatever experience or knowledge you have, you have to be ready to draw different conclusions on it. Or better yet, don't store conclusions or depend on them at all. You should be the real-time assessing machine based on previous data. A conclusion doesn't require any more data, it is already distilled and therefore it can be a local max. So instead of operating on conclusions which are based on different experiences under different circumstances, you should be processing the information you have while merging it with the "new information" of the "new circumstance".
Of course you can't live with this logic in literally every situation of life because it adds too much brain effort to living. But isn't this part of humanity? Most of the time you should be striking the balance about depending on your conclusions or processing without assumptions. I would not judge you if assumptionless life feels overwhelming. But i would judge you if you think assumptionless mind is unnecessary or non-sensical. Because technically, that means you are simply claiming too much over a vast ocean of experiences in the world. You would be over-confident and blind and you would miss a lot.
For example, are you reading books to empower your prior knowledge or to learn new things that can sometimes shake what you already know? Are you testing people you meet to prove your intuitions or to dig the stuff they are withholding from you? Are you watching a movie only to guess the ending and to brag about it, or to put it into your art arsenal? There are a lot of things you would miss in life if you are confident of your conclusions.
Do i have conclusions in life? Most definitely yes. Am i 100% certain about most of them? Yes. But acting upon them is different. You would never every see me voicing a pre-defined expression of someone before meeting with them. I would never ever watch a movie by saying "this is one of those movies..." kind of thing. I would rarely skip a blog post or article about some news about the world or technology just by looking at the title. Although there are lots of examples, like clickbaits, i usually lose some time over utterly useless blog post or a video before i making a conclusion that it is garbage. I have conclusions but most of the time, i try to ignore them. I want to be surprised. I want to experience "the new".
The philosophy of not knowing can subtly improve your life, if applied with care. Having a quality life is not about overthinking. I don't suggest that. It is about acknowledging and accepting variety and having zero presumptions. Every person can be a new experience, every action can give you a new aspect. Sticking to the same "whatever you have" for all the time is not actually productive or eye opening. This philosophy introduces you with the term "variety" and widens your spectrum.
The philosophy of not knowing is also about being humble. When you are asked about some subject you already have knowledge of, you usually inject phrases like "as far as i know", "in my opinion or experience", "you be the judge of that", "correct me if i am wrong" ...etc. These phrases SHOULD NOT MEAN that you are not confident. We are not trying to be manipulators here, right? These phrases must be acknowledged as open mindedness.
The philosophy of not knowing is also about avoiding prejudice. We usually fall for this confidence trap and be prejudice against people or events. It is almost as if it gives us some feeling of power. But in reality, expectations and prejudice are like semi-transparent filters. The more they add up, the more blurred the reality we see. Expectations are less dangerous then prejudice. Expectations can come from selfishness, narcissism or narrowmindedness. Prejudice is ironically mostly narrowminded, since people claim they know so much. Prejudice isn't built on top of knowledge. Because technically, the more you know, the more you realize there are stuff to know, angles to see.
Prejudice can also make you stubborn on mistakes. There is a good chance that you may not accept the fact that you were wrong about someone or something. You may be trying to find clues or manipulate the facts according to your own belief or expectation. People rarely accept their mistakes these days. Actually we can also say, people rarely see their mistakes these days.
When you get rid of prejudice and acknowledge there is more in life than you know, you start the open mindedness journey. Just because you have some knowledge base, whether it is big or small, doesn't mean you have figured out every experience and every angle in this world. You must be like a sponge when it comes to absorbing realities in this world. That would make you open minded. After that, it is up to you how to process the new information. Open mindedness is not about convincing someone or changing their views or decisions. It is about taking stuff in and then evaluating. Because sometimes people bend this concept and judge you for being not open minded when they can't change your beliefs or convince you about something.
One side note, labelling in life is not ideal either. Think about a big room full of people. You may see people start clumping together. Then you may start labelling them as thinkers, talkers or entertainers or something. But the labelings in our life is not that simple. We label some action or idea or even a word with some preset framework of judgement. There are lots of examples of this and giving examples here might start more complications. But i can say this: The reality is multidimensional. If you take a look at 1 piece of information, you will lose the connections to other dimensions. If you can imagine, try imagining 10 dimensional space and connections through those dimensions. You don't have the luxury to dismiss or disregard those unknown connections.
At this point, you may ask "you mentioned wisdom which is based on knowledge and you trust it, doesn't it mean you trust your conclusions?". Well, technically yes but wisdom is not accumulated in 1 day. It also has mistakes in it as experiences and open mindedness. It must be more than just a conclusion. I am trying to draw the ideal line here but you can decide what is knowledge and what is wisdom for you. Also, wisdom must be able to predict some future i guess. Wisdom is not judgement, it is guidance.
What is experience then? Do i discard the experience? Of course not. In fact, this may sound psychologically bad, but i would say never ever forget any experience ever, whether it is good or bad. I don't say live with them, it is not helpful. I am saying, don't forget. Those are what are you going to use while processing and merging with new data. So having an elephant memory is required :) Again, i realize this thinking style is a bit too much for human brain but i told you it is mostly a trade off between choosing confidence or analysis.
The philosophy of not knowing is my most basic understanding in life and i can suggest it to you too. As you can realize, this post is mostly philosophical. I can't and wouldn't tell you how to live your life. I can't guide you through every situation in life, and no one else can either. I can only give you a mindset, which basically expands the concept of "open mindedness". Knowing what you don't know is strength. Striking balance is a human ability. Critical thinking is a human ability. So why just expect blacks and whites to rule our life? Why don't acknowledge the grays or other colors in different aspects of life too? Will you try to be more thorough with your choices now? See you at the next post :)
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