Category: Knowledge

On Truth as Paradox

On Truth as Paradox

All truth is paradox. Everything true in the world has innate contradictions…

… and this turns out to be a reason for hope.

If you arrive at a place in life that is miserable, it will change, and something else about it will also be true. So paradox is an invitation to go deeper into life, to see a bigger screen, instead of the nice, safe lower left-quadrant where you see work, home, and the country. Try a wider reality, through curiosity,awareness, and breath. Try actually being here. What a concept.

Anne Lamott, from “Almost Everything – Notes on Hope” P. 19
On Knowing

On Knowing

I know one thing, that I know nothing.

Socrates

We think we know what we know, and we love that so much, no matter what Socrates thought. We like to think we stand on the truth, that the ground beneath our feet is stable, moored…

Yet the blessing of knowing that you don’t know is to get gently busted. We may not actually want to know this, but we don’t have a choice.

Anne Lamott, from “Almost Everything – Notes on Hope” P. 26
There are three words which are among the most important words in our business: I don’t know. And if you don’t know something…you should admit it—to yourself and to everybody around you. And I think personally that it’s very freeing to say ‘I don’t know.’ I think it’s very, almost depressing, to feel that you have to have an opinion on every subject, even the ones where by definition you can’t have superior knowledge

There are three words which are among the most important words in our business: I don’t know. And if you don’t know something…you should admit it—to yourself and to everybody around you. And I think personally that it’s very freeing to say ‘I don’t know.’ I think it’s very, almost depressing, to feel that you have to have an opinion on every subject, even the ones where by definition you can’t have superior knowledge

— Howard Marks