To put its wisdom simply, one could say the fundamental human challenge is this:
It’s hard to learn if you already know.
Unfortunately, we are hardwired to feel as if we know—as if we see reality itself rather than a version of reality filtered through our biases, backgrounds, or expertise. But we can unlearn the habit of knowing and reinvigorate our curiosity.
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But while knowledge can sometimes be a blessing, it can also be a curse. Because once people know a lot about something, it can be difficult for them to remember what it’s like not to know that much. To imagine what it’s like not having that depth of understanding.
But what we forget is that while it’s easy for us to parse, others may not feel the same way. While we have spent lots of time thinking about something, or know a lot about it, we often fail to account for the fact that others may not be in the same position.
We are limited by our perspective and frequently wrong. Therefore, it is useful to practice being attentive and curious in order to increase our understanding of others. Usually, the more familiar we become with others, the more we assume we “know” them. We risk believing we are “relationship experts.
When confronted with the empirical and evaluative complexity that faces us, it can be easy to feel clueless, as if there’s nothing at all we can do. But that would be too pessimistic. Even if we’re walking backwards into the future—and even if the terrain we’re walking on is unexplored, it’s dark and foggy, and we have few clues to guide us—nonetheless, some plans are smarter than others. We can employ three rules of thumb.
Early philosophers argued that we cannot perceive ourselves directly, rather ourselves must be “caught in the act” of perceiving something that exists in the real world. Self-knowledge, therefore, comes from our reactions to things that happen to us and around us. Just as we learn about other people by observing their behavior and making inferences from it, we learn about ourselves by examining what we do when events force our hand—yet another reason why solitary introspection is insufficient and why experimenting provides more useful information than reflecting on past experience.
One of the primary ways in which unfreezing events mark a cut with the past and herald the start of a transition period, according to psychoanalyst Manfred Kets de Vries, is by serving as an organizing scheme for everything that occurs afterwards: “From this point on, every new disturbance is recognized as part of the same pattern of dissatisfaction,” he writes.