I Know Nothing - Socrates

"I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing, and that is that I know nothing" by Socrates.

Socrates was a very wise man indeed, for he knew very early on that the only thing he knew was that he knew nothing. This is a contradiction of sorts because how can you know that you know nothing when you must know something to know that, right? :-) Seriously though, this world is so vast and full of so much information that what each of us does know is so insignificant. Yet, when combined together, that knowledge can be used to achieve so much.

What makes me angry though is when people who do know nothing about a topic pretend to know. When questioned, their evidence is just pulled out of thin air and given as truth. It's ignorant people like this who spread inaccurate information that sometimes may be harmful. I tend to argue with these people because I just can't stand people who think they know everything when clearly they don't. I don't give an opinion when its on a topic I don't know about, but when I clearly know that someone is wrong, I will challenge them.

I learnt very quickly that pretending to know things is a disservice to yourself, you never actually learn anything if you do this. When I first started working, two separate incidents helped me learn that admitting you don't know is the best thing you can do. If you pretend to know and go off and do things, you will inevitably get it wrong. You just end up digging a hole deeper and deeper for yourself and cover up lies with more lies. There's no shame in admitting that you don't know something. When you say you don't know, people tend to be very patient with you and will teach you the correct ways to do things. People who aren't patient are idiots since there will ineviatably be something that they don't know and will want tutoring on from someone else. People will impart a lot of knowledge to you and you have gained another skill or learnt another thing. I constantly ask people lots of question since I have a real thirst for knowledge. It's very fortunate that I'm surrounded at work by some very knowledgeable people who are very willing to impart their knowledge onto me. I have learnt so much about so many topics in the past two years of work, and all is takes is to admit that you don't know and not pretend to know.

The moral of the story is that we know so little and in order to learn more, you just have to admit that you don't know some things. Other people will be happy to impart knowledge to you such as you will be able to impart knowledge to others who want to know. Pretending to know is the dumbest thing you can do and will only help you to remain ignorant and uninformed.