Soulful Sundays: Folly

“I know that I don’t know.” —Socrates

We live in an age of information—every conceivable fact available at our fingertips, every intellectual itch capable of being scratched. But in all of our knowing, have we become any wiser? There is real danger in the acquisition of knowledge absent the cultivation of discernment. The ancients knew this long before the days of the internet, computers, or even written language. The only thing worse than outright ignorance is ignorance of a wrong way of thinking. The former is youthful folly. The latter is true folly.

Youthful folly is the state of the beginner’s mind. As the Zen saying goes, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.” When we narrow our focus to only a small set of solutions, we close down our ability to meaningfully observe reality. In fact, neuroscience supports the idea that the more familiar we become with something, the less conscious effort our brains devote to processing it. Familiar patterns become increasingly automatic, conserving our attention for novel stimuli. And while this evolutionary trick works well for the mundane, it can become a real hindrance when considering complex, existentially significant decisions.

A higher order of operation is to exercise discernment. The legendary swordsman Miyamoto Musashi was said to have perfected the art of discernment. He was undefeated in more than sixty duels not simply because he was a superior fighter, but because he could detect weaknesses in his opponents’ styles. He refused to confine himself to a single school of swordsmanship because he did not want his actions dictated by dogma. In seeking the Way of the sword, he found that observation of all things—not just martial arts—was essential to forming his understanding. We can strive to emulate the same openness. When we find ourselves confounded by difficulties, we must ask ourselves: Is our goal to truly learn, or just to know?