What I know is very little, and what I don’t know is infinite.
It’s relatively easy to grasp at a map level, and it can also be a lived and visceral noticing.
WHAT I KNOW IS LITTLE, WHAT I DON’T KNOW IS INFINITE
In a conventional sense, and in the context of humanity today, what I know about most things is very little. I know some computer programming, web design, and CEO, and it’s little compared with what some knows. I know a good deal about art, art history, and drawing and painting, and others know more. I know some things about what I write about here, and many know far more about the same topics. And so on.
Even if I knew more than anyone in a certain area of life, it’s still a tiny drop in the ocean compared with what there is to know. It’s easy to imagine someone – perhaps in the future, perhaps somewhere else in the universe – knowing far more. There is always more to know, and then more. There is no finishing line. That’s one of the beautiful things about this existence.
OUR COLLECTIVE KNOWING IS ALWAYS CHANGING
What we collectively know will be outdated in the future. Future generations will see different aspects of our current worldview and knowledge as quaint, limited, missing crucial insights, misguided, and so on. It will seem old-fashioned, and even ridiculous.
That also applies to our general worldview and our most fundamental assumptions about ourselves, the world, and existence. We have a certain worldview that we tend to take for granted. Over time, with new insights, orientations, and needs, it will change. Given enough time, even the most fundamental assumptions we have today will change and be seen as outdated.
In general, there are innumerable possible worldviews that fit the data equally well or better than the one(s) we are familiar with.
ALWAYS A BEGINNER
In this way, I am always a beginner. I am always at the very beginning of experience, familiarity, and knowledge about anything.
What I know is finite and very little. It would be, even if I knew more than anyone alive today. What I don’t know is infinite.
I am at the beginning of the imaginary spectrum of knowledge about anything.
Getting this is humbling in a very good way. It opens up the world, and it invites curiosity, receptivity, and wonder.
KNOWING IS NOT REALLY KNOWING
Also, what we think of as knowing may not be what we think it is.
One form of knowing is within the mental field, at a map level. I can know a map about something. I can know some ideas about something. This is useful, and it’s clearly very limited.
A mental representation is a question about the world. It’s a way for this human self to orient and function in the world. It’s an abstraction and highlights some things and leaves a lot out. It’s an interpretation and inevitably a distortion. Ideas can never hold any full, final, or absolute “truth”, that’s not their function. They fit may fit the data more or less well in a conventional sense. And they are ultimately and inevitably wrong, and that’s fine. The world is always different from and more than my ideas about it.
I can also have a more experiential and visceral knowing about something. It usually comes from lived experience over time, and quite a few parts of me (aspects of my psyche and being) has reoriented to align with it. Although this knowing is a more lived knowing, it doesn’t mean it’s necessarily more “true”. It’s still very limited and reflects my own biases, experiences, and the culture I live within.
MAP AND VISCERAL
That’s the same with knowing how little I know.
That too is partly from a map, mental representations, reminding me that what I know is little and what I don’t know is infinite.
And it’s partly visceral, a lived experience.
GENERAL AND IN THE DETAILS
This knowing can be general – a general insight that’s part of my general worldview.
It may be something I am familiar with and apply in some areas of life.
And there are also areas of life where I don’t apply it. Where I “forget” about it, and where the fullness of my psyche does not yet fully apply and live it.
For instance, parts of me still live within the idea that I am unlovable, and they are unaware that that’s a question and not reality. They think they know, and don’t know that they don’t know.
That’s the case with any wounded part of me. To protect me, they hold onto (painful) ideas as if they are true, and they are unaware of how little they know. They are unable to hold those painful ideas more lightly.
IN PRACTICE
What does this mean in practice? What does it mean for how I live my life?
Yes, others may know more than me. Yes, what we collectively know (or think I know) is a drop in the ocean compared with what there is to know. Yes, what I know exists within a particular worldview, and there are many other worldviews (that I, or we collectively, don’t know about) that may make more sense and fits the data better.
That doesn’t mean there is nothing to share. What I have to share – however limited, biased, and ultimately wrong – may be of immense value to someone else.
I can share in this context, knowing and acknowledging this.
SHARING WITH CONFIDENCE
It’s fully possible to acknowledge how little we know, either in a conventional or more real sense, and still share and live with confidence.
That combination is very attractive to many, and it works well in this world.
Where does that confidence come from? Mainly from a healthy upbringing where we felt loved, safe, and listened to and taken seriously by those around us. Or, if we didn’t get it then, from giving it to ourselves later in life – consistently and over time.
MY EXPERIENCE
That brings me to my experience with all of this.
Since early in life, it was clear to me that what I know is little and what I don’t know is infinite.
In early childhood, I remember asking my father the repeated “why” question about something, and then “are you sure?”. My father said: “I am not certain about anything”. That made a deep impression on me and I took it to heart. (As I write this, I am sitting a meter away from where he said those words.)
In childhood, I was fascinated by science and the discoveries possible through science. I don’t think I consciously thought about it in this way, but I was aware that there is an infinite amount of things to explore.
In my early and mid-teens, I was fascinated by the history and philosophy of science. First, through Carl Sagan and the Cosmos series. Then, far more deeply through Fritjof Capra and his Turning Point, The Tao of Physics, and the books he references there.
The oneness shift when I was sixteen showed me even more profoundly, directly, and undeniably how little I know, and how little our mental field can grasp reality. Our mental field is vitally important for this human self to function in the world, and also operates on questions and cannot begin to touch reality.
USING IT TO HIDE
I am also very familiar with how we can use this very real insight – what I know is little, what I don’t know is infinite – to play small and hide.
I don’t have that natural confidence I wrote about earlier. Growing up, I didn’t receive whatever was needed for that to happen. The seed and essence of this is intergenerational trauma, which was strongly amplified by a class in school (elementary through high school) with a strong bulling culture.
Because of my wounds and traumas, many parts of me feel it’s not safe to be visible. They want me to hide to stay safe. And since this trauma is pretty deep, and many parts of my psyche are onboard with this strategy to protect me, I have largely lived that way. I have avoided being visible.
I have been aware of these dynamics in me since my early or mid-teens, and that’s not enough to change deep trauma or how it’s lived in life. Even all the consistent therapy work hasn’t been enough. Even inviting all the different parts of me to reorganize and align within the oneness I am recognizing itself hasn’t been enough.
We can take any genuine insight and use it to feed trauma behavior. In my case, I have used it to justify hiding, not being visible, and not taking the roles someone in my position – with my education, insights, knowledge, skills, and privilege – easily could have taken.
Of course, that’s not all of what’s happening. Different parts of me operate from painful beliefs saying I am unlovable, unloved, that what I have to say is not important, that nobody is interested, and so on. And there is no lack of “evidence” in my life to support that. (There is no lack of evidence for the reverse as well, of course.)
Even now, as a grown person, I am repeatedly experiencing not being seen and listened to by people around me, which sometimes has serious consequences for me and others. I also know that I am setting up those situations by not speaking up, not making sure they understand, not sharing enough information, not telling them my background and expertise in relevant areas, and so on.
This too is humbling. It shows me clearly that my conscious view is – as Freud, Jung and others pointed out – the metaphorical tip of the iceberg of my being.
My life is colored – and lived – by the whole and fullness of my bodymind. It’s run by the innumerable parts of me, some or many of which still operate from wounds and trauma in spite of years of therapy, heart-centered practices, meditation, inquiry, somatic work, and so on.