{"id":293,"date":"2011-07-09T08:02:42","date_gmt":"2011-07-09T16:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/?p=293"},"modified":"2011-07-09T08:02:42","modified_gmt":"2011-07-09T16:02:42","slug":"you-dont-have-to-know-what-youre-doing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/?p=293","title":{"rendered":"You Don&rsquo;t Have to Know What You&rsquo;re Doing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> The other day it occurred to me that although I have high status in several areas, have diplomas and certificates and am generally thought to know what I\u2019m doing, in fact, most of the time, I do <em>not<\/em> know what I\u2019m doing! I sort of explore the world, improvise, get feedback, adjust, negotiate, feel my way into, and use these various inputs to keep going. Perhaps in a more general sense I know what I\u2019m doing, in the sense of being somewhat oriented. But the point I\u2019m making here is that I realized that I had expected a more stable sense of really knowing\u2014and that contrasted with an awareness that my reality is in fact far more fluid and \u201cin process.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>I realized yet again what a distortion the common 20th century practice of testing as a major element in schooling does to our mind. It implies that valuable knowledge is, well, known\u2014and that means that facts\u2014 even seemingly irrelevant facts\u2014even trivia\u2014are successfully memorized. Aha, now I \u201cknow\u201d it. But this contrasted with my growing awareness that real life is a creative process of exploration, experimentation, correction\u2014far more cybernetic. <\/p>\n<p>Then there\u2019s another realm of life in which cultivating <em>un<\/em>-knowing is a major skill. One application of this is wonder, enjoying the not-knowing and the feeling of what a friend called \u201castonish-mentality.\u201d It adds to the sense of spiritual surrender and relaxation, adds to the serenity possible in life, and even to the delight of the \u201cinner child.\u201d Related to this is the need to dip into this not-knowing-ness to become more surprised and yet open (rather than closed and judgmentally defensive) when I discover that others think or perceive quite differently from me. <\/p>\n<p>I realized that the 20th century world-view for the most part equates competence with knowing, as if one either had or did not have certain facts available to the mind. The operative word is \u201chave\u201d as in \u201cgrasp\u201d\u2014a pervasive valuing of ownership, property, and, sad to say, identity. It supports the satirical sign I once saw: \u201cThe one with the most stuff when he dies wins.\u201d These words implicitly critique the culturally pervasive value of \u201cwinning\u201d as well as the consumerist valuing of \u201chaving stuff.\u201d But I am beginning to question my cultural conditioning, my need to have, to own, to know. I\u2019ve been there, done that, and I\u2019m impressed with the degree of clutter that produces. I\u2019m turning (very gradually) towards simplicity and letting go. It\u2019s not easy. But the idea of knowing versus not-knowing is a facet of this whole 20th century world-view. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The other day it occurred to me that although I have high status in several areas, have diplomas and certificates and am generally thought to know what I\u2019m doing, in fact, most of the time, I do not know what I\u2019m doing! I sort of explore the world, improvise, get feedback, adjust, negotiate, feel my [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,20,11,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-autobiographical","category-follies","category-literacy","category-wisdom-ing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/293\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}