I would like to argue that my life is enriched and has great value as a result of my ignorance.
I appreciate that this is a somewhat strange thing to say, and so I will attempt to explain how I have reached that conclusion.
It is particularly strange for me to talk about the enrichment and value of ignorance, given that I often refer to the main activities of my life as reading, writing and learning. And what is more, I will continue to make that statement, I believe, for the rest of my life.
My argument has 3 strands…
- Knowing the limits of learning anything
- Caring for the self
- Recognising, and respecting, the value of the learning and life experiences of other people.
I really value the pursuit of learning, and I have enacted that in various ways in my life. One of the current ways for me is engaging with a postgraduate degree in creative writing and wellbeing. It sounds very grand, but it won’t in, and of, itself make me a better writer nor give me a greater understanding of wellbeing. It might help me with developing better critical thinking skills, increasing my knowledge (a little) about how writing can be used for therapeutic purposes and how to be more disciplined about reading more widely and analytically. It won’t make me an expert in any of those areas, but will mostly teach me how to learn at postgraduate level and how that might be useful to me.
If I want to learn more about writing craft, how to apply critical thinking and how to consistently read more widely and analytically, that will require a lot more learning – some of it of an academic nature and a large part of an experiential nature.
Thus, being fairly simplistic about it, there are two main forms of learning at work here – one which is based on academic pursuit, and one which is based upon the accumulation of skills and expertise through experience.
In either learning scenario, that which is chosen is fairly obvious, but that which is excluded is much less so, as we all have to accumulate some basic skills in many areas, if we are to successfully navigate our way through our lives. We do not, however, have to become experts in those areas, although there will be some of us who choose to do just that.
Thus, we know that there are limits. Can any of us claim to know everything there is to know about everything – or even in the areas where we have developed expertise? The answer is usually “no”, but even if it could possibly be “yes”, that situation is not likely to last, as new knowledge and discoveries are likely to grow faster than we can absorb them. Thus, there are liits to what we can know, even in one subject, never mind many subjects.
Attempting to know everything about one or more subject may, in a sense, be laudable to some degree, but it may also be damaging in terms of physical and mental health, but also damaging to social relationships and maintaining a reasonable existence within society as a whole.
Thus, some balance should be applied. If I take myself as an example, I live alone and wish to pursue learning. If I was not careful, I might never go out, neglect my domestic chores, not eat and drink properly, not maintain contact with family or even ignore basic hygiene and grooming, all of which could very quickly result in a big mess, and maybe one which would be difficult to recover from.
Thus, I need to ensure that more of those things happen to me, and that I am taking care of myself. I need to switch off from the learning to do all the other things, even if I hate doing them, which in my case is the never-ending dishes and the bottomless laundry basket.
By living my life as I wish to do, I am reliant on the skills and experience of others from waste disposal operatives to electrical engineers to sewage workers to farmers – to name just a few. If I sit back and consider all the work and skills and knowledge of everyone whose work I rely upon for my daily existence, it is quite staggering. Thus, I come to have respect for the whole of society, and what we each provide for the other. And by doing so, I come to know how my life has value and enrichment as a result of those with skills and expertise where I continue to be hugely ignorant.
Fraser
November 2024