The Art of Not Knowing
On a recent walk I saw a rodent that rivaled the size of some of the dogs I routinely pass. My first impulse was to snap a picture to do a reverse google search. My phone was sitting in my pocket, making this a perfectly viable option. But, I resisted the urge. Instead, I pulled out my notebook, sketched a quick outline of it, and walked on. I later consulted the internet to try to identify it, with no success.
It turns out that I’m not all that deeply disappointed. It was a passing curiosity. A question that was mildly interesting. The real value in the experience was the opportunity to simply sit with the question for a while. Staying with the Not Knowing has its own advantages.
Practicing the Art of Not Knowing
Wondering about something and not having an answer for it is a dying art. In truth, it’s all but lost already. I have to choose to exist in this state of Not Knowing. I have to resist the quick fix of looking something up. I am actively practicing this disappearing skill—the Art of Not Knowing.
In Alice in Wonderland, the queen brags, “Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” I feel like my equivalent boast would be “I’ve not known as many as six things before breakfast.”
My little notebook is indispensable in my practice of Not Knowing. When some question or quandary floats across my mind, or comes up in conversation, I make an effort to jot it down instead of pulling out my phone or asking Alexa. Admittedly, I find it easier to resist the temptation to know right away if my notebook is close at hand and my phone and iPad are tucked safely in their charging station—somewhere else.
This writing down is essential because our brains don’t like “open loops”. They obsess over unresolved questions and unsolved problems. I don’t necessarily want to waste brain power on every question that flits across my mind’s stage. My notebook allows me to experience curiosity without crushing it. But, it also allows me to move on.
I jot down anything from titles of books or authors’ names that I want to look into to questions about the opening hours at the library. Most of these I’ll look up at another time, when I’m already in a frazzled internety sort of state. But, others will just sit, unheeded in my notebook. It’s rather freeing to learn that I don’t have to act on every curiosity that floats across my brain.
An unintended benefit I’ve found to this writing down of questions is that I’m creating a trail of my curiosity. I can flip through the traces of my wandering interests, which provide a unique map of my wonderings.
What I Stand to Lose
The point of all of this Not Knowing isn’t to simply be willfully ignorant in the face of available answers. I am developing this Art of Not Knowing because it shows me how to inhabit the space of uncertainty with just a little more ease. And that is a skill for our age, if ever there were one.
I think the danger of allowing my Not Knowing muscle to atrophy is that the Big Things in life, the things that I really want to wrestle with, all require living for extended periods of time in a state of Not Knowing.
How do I live well?
What is Truth?
How do I participate in creating a better world?
These are fundamentally different types of questions than
What’s the area of California?
What year did Abraham Lincoln give his second inaugural?
How many seats are in the Indian parliament?
These Big Things are the types of things that can’t be answered by a quick Google search. But, when my Not Knowing muscle isn’t well developed, I’m tempted to Google it anyway. The danger of the internet is that I know I can turn to it for something resembling an answer. No matter how ridiculous the question, someone has asked it, and someone has crafted some version of an answer. Experiencing that kind of pseudo-answer is a lot more comfortable than the disquieting feeling of sitting with the Not Knowing.
It is a slow process. But, incrementally, gradually, I see a shift happening. In fits and starts, I am able to dwell in deeper wells of uncertainty. In time, embracing the unknown may even allow me to make friends with the unknowable.