"..this is why I value that little phrase 'I don't know' so highly. It's small, but it flies on mighty wings. It expands our lives to include the spaces within us as well as those outer expanses in which our tiny Earth hangs suspended."Wislawa Szymborska, Nobel Lecture 1996
I'd like to think I could live off that idea- "I don't know" for the rest of my days. I find it immeasurably motivating and a better ailment (if you want to call it that) to obsess over then vanity, power, material wealth, etc. Hedging, pacing, and second guessing is one thing, but an overly generous level of curiosity, humility, and dialectical thought is one way by which to achieve a life well lived.
Symborska is not the first to talk about the idea of not knowing. Socrates, Kierkegaard, and others have discussed it in the context of strengthening an argument.
I'd like to think I could live off that idea- "I don't know" for the rest of my days. I find it immeasurably motivating and a better ailment (if you want to call it that) to obsess over then vanity, power, material wealth, etc. Hedging, pacing, and second guessing is one thing, but an overly generous level of curiosity, humility, and dialectical thought is one way by which to achieve a life well lived.
Symborska is not the first to talk about the idea of not knowing. Socrates, Kierkegaard, and others have discussed it in the context of strengthening an argument.
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