This reminded me of a couple of things. One was my favourite ever school report. To this day I don't know if it was meant as a compliment or a criticism, but I favour the former. My history master simply wrote
"Gillis appears to know practically nothing about practically everything".
The other quote this reminded me of was one often attributed to JM Keynes but was apparently another economist named Paul Samuelson. He once said
"When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"
In this age of social informational overload, there seems to be an expectation for you to have a view and an opinion and to be dogmatic in your defence of it. We seem to have lost the humility to say "I don't know" or "I'm not sure" or "I know something about it but I want to explore further before I commit myself".
I have a couple of thoughts about this. The first is that, "I don't know," is a fantastic phrase that I wish more people would use. Many years ago I was in a meeting in a research center I worked at and one of the doctors was getting out of hand demanding answers to a problem. One of the leaders of the research center stopped everything dead in its tracks by flat out saying, "I don't know the answer to the problem." Instead of making a rod for his own back he admitted he didn't know and used that as a new point of departure for how to move forward instead of just making something up that might come back to bite him later.
My next thought is that martial arts school I used to call home was a bit of a cutthroat crucible. The expectation was that you should "steal" any technique you see. If you don't understand, ask questions until you have it within you grasp. I try to ask questions about techniques until I'm able to understand them. This may cause some headaches to some instructors and may be seen as somewhat "disruptive" to some classes, but I'm generally not a fan of being in classes where my curiosity and desire to learn is seen as disruptive. So people can just deal with me during sparring if that's how they feel. ;)
I enjoy it when students ask questions, it stimulates my own thinking and it becomes two-way. My only frustration is that in the middle of a class I can only give the shortest of answers. If I can, I sometimes say, 'It's a good question, but it needs a bigger answer; I will get back to you' and I usually do, often by email or Messenger.
In some ways, I sometimes try and answer those more complex questions through these Substack articles.
This reminded me of a couple of things. One was my favourite ever school report. To this day I don't know if it was meant as a compliment or a criticism, but I favour the former. My history master simply wrote
"Gillis appears to know practically nothing about practically everything".
The other quote this reminded me of was one often attributed to JM Keynes but was apparently another economist named Paul Samuelson. He once said
"When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?"
In this age of social informational overload, there seems to be an expectation for you to have a view and an opinion and to be dogmatic in your defence of it. We seem to have lost the humility to say "I don't know" or "I'm not sure" or "I know something about it but I want to explore further before I commit myself".
Love that. Take it as a complement.
So true about everyone fighting their own corner. On top of that they exist in their own echo chamber. It's so damaging in modern society.
I have a couple of thoughts about this. The first is that, "I don't know," is a fantastic phrase that I wish more people would use. Many years ago I was in a meeting in a research center I worked at and one of the doctors was getting out of hand demanding answers to a problem. One of the leaders of the research center stopped everything dead in its tracks by flat out saying, "I don't know the answer to the problem." Instead of making a rod for his own back he admitted he didn't know and used that as a new point of departure for how to move forward instead of just making something up that might come back to bite him later.
My next thought is that martial arts school I used to call home was a bit of a cutthroat crucible. The expectation was that you should "steal" any technique you see. If you don't understand, ask questions until you have it within you grasp. I try to ask questions about techniques until I'm able to understand them. This may cause some headaches to some instructors and may be seen as somewhat "disruptive" to some classes, but I'm generally not a fan of being in classes where my curiosity and desire to learn is seen as disruptive. So people can just deal with me during sparring if that's how they feel. ;)
I enjoy it when students ask questions, it stimulates my own thinking and it becomes two-way. My only frustration is that in the middle of a class I can only give the shortest of answers. If I can, I sometimes say, 'It's a good question, but it needs a bigger answer; I will get back to you' and I usually do, often by email or Messenger.
In some ways, I sometimes try and answer those more complex questions through these Substack articles.