If You Want to Learn

“It is impossible for a person to begin to learn what he thinks he already knows.” - Epictetus

Aging humbles me. The older I get, the less I realize I know. When a preconceived truth is proven wrong, a new one takes its place. Then that is proven wrong and I’m left wondering if there’s a red pill somewhere that finally provides the final, definite answer.

One can really go down a rabbit hole of “what ifs” in the search for truth. I remember an old middle school teacher challenging me by saying, “How do you know that God didn’t snap His fingers and create you, and all of your memories, five seconds ago?” The truth is I don’t, nor does anyone. We don’t know how long we’ve actually existed, although we have an educated guess, and we certainly have no clue how long we will continue to exist. Then, we have our theories on what happens after existence.

Somewhere in adolescence, swelled by our pride, I think we set out to form answers to every question. There’s never a time when we seemingly have more of the answers. I could prove any professor wrong back then.

Then time humbles us. It accelerates and snowballs, and as it gathers momentum our precious answers combust. At some point we’re a blank slate again, and maybe that’s for the best.

I still want to learn with whatever capacity I have.