“You don’t know what you don’t know” is a sentiment that can be traced back to ancient philosophers like Aristotle, Socrates and Taylor Swift.
Swift sang the line to put down a bully, but even brilliant people are ignorant about millions of things. If a woman says something in Hindi to a brain surgeon and a rocket scientist, they won’t understand if they’re ignorant of Hindi, but they’ll be smart enough to find a translator, even if it’s Google.
Many kind and intelligent people trap themselves like Swift’s bully, whose narrow view of the world wouldn’t let him embrace his inner ignoramus.
In his book “Beginners,” Tom Vanderbilt describes watching his daughter learn about everything from piano playing to skateboarding to chess. “But something began to gnaw at me. As I became the full-time supervisor of my daughter’s learning career, as I sat in any number of waiting areas while she improved, I wondered, what new skills had I learned?”
He ended up doing things like joining a choir and surfing. He also learned chess, but did it separately from his daughter so he didn’t get in her coach’s way.
“Overscheduled parents among you may protest that your hands are too full taking care of your children to learn something new,” Vanderbilt writes. “Why not learn something together? There’s any number of skills — playing guitar, making bread, origami — where adults may be as initially clueless as their kids. Skill learning brings you closer on various levels and gives you a fascinating window onto your child’s growth.”
As he explains on this podcast, children often learn more quickly because they take failures in stride, while adults put too much pressure on themselves. “You start to focus on the mistakes you’re making, and then you try to come up with a way to correct those mistakes, but often the way we try to correct the mistake sort of subconsciously brings up the mistake and why we’re making it.”
If you don’t have the time, money or energy that Vanderbilt has, think smaller — but keep thinking. At least try something new, to stimulate your brain if not your soul. Maybe you’ll hate it, but all it will cost you is a few hours or dollars. It could change your life.
Challenge yourself. Walk along a different path, literally or metaphorically. Meditate. Write a poem. Hell, read a poem. Start a garden. Take up yoga. Visit a new city or state or country. Download TikTok. Learn needlepoint. Listen to a radio station from halfway around the world. Find a podcast. Join a trivia league.
Here’s a trivia question to get you started: What percentage of U.S. adults have never traveled to another country? Answer below.
If you love movies and TV, don’t settle for what the networks and streaming services spit out. Find some gems you’ve never heard of from Rotten Tomatoes or IMDb. Maybe you’ll fall in love with a new star, or an old one.
Sample a fresh cuisine. Don’t say you hate vegetables if you haven’t tried Indian food. If you avoid sushi — “Eww! Raw fish” — try the (fully cooked) crab and shrimp. Drink enough sake and you just might sample some (raw) salmon.
The New York Times has great puzzles and crosswords for 40 bucks a year. I figured Apple Arcade wasn’t meant for people my age, but I had a free trial and found a game that helps you play sudoku without the tedium, plus one that lets you try to identify singers and songs from just about any era or genre. I’m hooked on both.
Trivia answer: 27%. Well over half of American adults have traveled to two or fewer countries. Only 11% have traveled to 10 or more.
In 2000, I loved asking this job interview question: What’s your favorite website? This was when Google wasn’t even 2 years old, when Amazon was losing truckloads of money. No Facebook, no Twitter, no YouTube. It was the year before the iPod, the year when Blockbuster turned down the chance to buy a DVD-rental company called Netflix for $50 million.
I didn’t care about people’s answers. I cared if they had the initiative and curiosity to check out something that was obviously going to change the world.
We see a lot of people today who are 85 or 90 and never learned to use the internet, so it’s harder to pay bills, schedule appointments, get critical information, order groceries, keep up with friends. As each year passes, they become more isolated.
They were all in their 60s in 2000, but didn’t have the initiative and curiosity to check out something that was obviously going to change the world. They didn’t know what they didn’t know.
Do you?
Murphy Slaw
Something old: One of the biggest stars whose music hadn’t been available for streaming is Aaliyah, the 22-year-old who died in a 2001 plane crash. But that is starting to change.
Something new: The tweet tells you the important part, but see this if you want the details.
Something borrowed: If you can’t beat them, entice them.
Something blue: If you know that you don’t know poetry, this tweet and thread might entice you.