“He who thinks he knows doesn’t know. He who knows that he doesn’t know, knows.” ~Joseph Campbell

“He who thinks he knows doesn’t know. He who knows that he doesn’t know, knows.” ~Joseph Campbell

We are outflanked by the unknown. It binds us like an existential straitjacket. It is impenetrable, unsolvable, unconquerable. Our knowledge is a molecule on top of a snowflake on top of an ice cube on the tip of an unfathomably massive iceberg.

If the journey is truly the thing, then it’s okay that we don’t know. It’s okay that we don’t have the answers. It’s okay that we’ll never find our way out of the maze. It’s okay that our finite perspective cannot grasp infinity. 

It’s okay that inside our enlightened butterfly souls there will always be an ugly ignorant caterpillar.

The experience of knowing that we don’t know empties our “cup.” It allows us to “not know” so that we can become “empty” enough to receive new knowledge. “I don’t know” frees us to thrive in a state of prepared learning. We use the philosophical tool of “I don’t know” to be astonished by knowing something new. 

How do we climb out of the abyss of NOT knowing that we don’t know? We climb up onto the summit into a state of KNOWING that we don’t know.

We keep questioning all the way. We keep recycling our knowledge. We keep reinventing ourselves. There is joy in persistent inquiry and not accepting “answers.”

As Scott Adams said, “Awareness is about unlearning. It is the recognition that you don’t know as much as you thought you knew.”