I’m ignorant; My Freedom to Naivety.

I am ignorant. And for that I am grateful because the infinitude of things I don’t know means that I will be able to learn forever. And that, in turn, means that I can live a life of surprise and wonder. It also means I can approach situations with a mindset that is prepared to figure things out. There are two essential elements to this: a willingness to admit that you don’t know something and a belief that you are capable of learning it. The curse of our education system is that it’s designed to convey a specific set of content rather than a process for acquiring content – the implication being that once we have got a 65% or above on some tests, we are done with learning and can now get on with the business of ‘real life’.

There is nothing sadder than being a know-it-all; it means you are done with learning. And that attitude of being done affects more than our ability to acquire new skills. It affects our relationships with those around us. It affects our inclination to understand each other, to learn from each other, to find common ground. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow said: “If we knew the secret history of our enemies, we would find sorrow and suffering enough to dispel all hostility,” but if you do not tend towards learning, you will never discover those secret histories.

Since the Sun is not a solid body, different parts of the Sun rotate at different rates. At the equator, the Sun spins around once about every 25 days, but at its poles the Sun rotates once on its axis every 36 Earth days. But it appears to rise and set because of the Earth’s rotation on its axis. It makes one complete turn every 24 hours. As your town turns toward the sun and begins to enter its light, the sun seems to rise in the east. As your town begins to leave the sun’s light and enter darkness, it appears to set in the west. Darkness would not exist if it werent for light.Could light exist without darkness?
Cold would not exist were it not for heat. Would heat exist were it not for cold?
Black would not exist were it not for color. Would color exist without black?
The absence of rules would not exist were it not for freedom. Would freedom exist in a world of no rules? These are some of questions and facts that reexamined my deep held truths of the sun raising and setting, whether darkness exists? Life becomes more meaningful when we reexamine what we have always held as truth . And all that I have written can be challenged by new facts which are empirical.

When I was Primary One, 9 -10 was always = impossible. That was only my freedom to naivety. However, when I progressed and became more familiar with algebra, I learnt of negatives, deficits 9 – 10 = -1. That was my appreciation of reason. Reasoning can only be dismissed by “better reasoning that is intuitive” and not mere fancy thoughts of just saying impossible. Let’s celebrate ignorance with a view of unlearning and relearning.