this, written quite extemporaneously, was complimented by someone. in reviewing it, it does seem i managed a moment of clarity. so, putting it here for myself as a reminder, as needed.
Elsewhere, someone wrote: “Humans have the unfortunate capacity to know that they know”
respectfully, i disagree. there are elaborate constructs of thought dedicated to explaining how one ‘knows’ something, but in the end, there is no thing that is truly known before or beyond the moment of the experience and, even in the moment of experience, it cannot be known fully.
humans have a remarkable capacity for forgetting that the ‘point of certainty’ is not ‘certainty’. we look at a thing until it is believed to be ‘as certain as is humanly possible’ and we call this ‘knowledge’. but they are not the same thing.
the answer to the question “how do you know what you know?” is simply “you believe that you know it.” we may think as long as we like, but we cannot know all possible outcomes. the best possible is to have a reasonable belief to any one end or another, and even this is likely foolishness, the record of all the things we thought we knew and have found to be utterly wrong about continues to build.
the need to feel certain, the need to feel we know is both our blessing and our curse – blessing in that it keeps us moving and striving, curse in that it cannot ever be truly satisfied.
we move in willful ignorance and call it knowledge because it is the best we can manage. we live in ignorance of all outcomes and all possibilities and call it free will because it comforts us. i would agree that we are not victims to our circumstances, but only so long as we are willing to continue moving in spite of them. at the point we embrace the label, we become the label. never before.
the experience here is that striving for a state of certainty or knowledge combined with the attachment to or aversion from events, circumstances, and people is the foundation of all suffering in the world. the ‘cure’ therefore, seems to be to relinquish it all and be content even in ignorance, and allow the natural wonder that rises from it be fuel for delight in life.
it is not a “bad” thing to be ignorant (unknowing). it is not a “bad” thing to be humble before life and others. it is not a “bad” thing to admit we do not know. indeed, the point of certainty and the assumption of knowledge is the single, greatest impediment to insight… for when one concludes there is knowledge and certainty, one stops looking.