Ignorance

The exclusion of data. Ignorance has nothing to do with your ability to assimilate new information. That’s your IQ, and totally independent of your degree of ignorance. We cannot eliminate ignorance. It’s hard wired into our brains, but we can “tame” it. Shape its behaviour to better suit our well being. The pattern of blank spots in your consciousness can be deliberately moved, relocated. As they say, you can’t know everything. But I say you just can’t know everything all at once.

If I consciously know I’m ignorant in an area, I will listen more and give people the benefit of the doubt. In knowing your ignorance you can have a deeply meaningful ally that can move us to know when to seek wise council, as well as when to offer it and when to abstain. No one persons wisdom is all encompassing.

“Being ignorant is not so much a shame, as being unwilling to learn.” Benjamin Franklin (American Statesman, Scientist, Philosopher, Printer, Writer and Inventor. 1706-1790)

“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.” Confucius (China’s famous teacher, philosopher, and political theorist, 551-479 BC)

“The doorstep to the temple of wisdom is a knowledge of our own ignorance.” Benjamin Franklin (American Statesman, Scientist, Philosopher, Printer, Writer and Inventor. 1706-1790)