The Sweet Admission... of Ignorance!

There are two short words we all know, which we hear from our children ten times a day, and which we ourselves utter with great difficulty as we grow older. These two words take no more than a second to say, yet they feel like stones lodged in our throats: “I don’t know.” Or, in colloquial Arabic, “Ma adri.”

Reflect on any of our gatherings when a question is posed that no one knows the answer to. You will usually hear anything but these two words. You’ll hear an opinion expressed with confidence by someone who hasn’t read, or a personal anecdote irrelevant to the question, or a subtle shift of the topic, or a joke that rescues everyone from the predicament of having to answer. It’s as if the entire room has silently agreed to say anything at all—except the simple truth that no one knows the answer!

We don’t do this because we are naturally deceitful, but because we have learned since childhood that ignorance is a flaw. A child who raises his hand and says, “I didn’t understand,” may be looked at differently than one who stays silent and nods. A student who answers confidently but incorrectly may be forgiven, but the one who says, “I don’t know,” is seen as admitting something unforgivable. Thus, we grow up carrying this unspoken rule, preferring to be confidently wrong rather than honestly ignorant.

The higher we rise in position, age, or academic credentials, the more difficult it becomes. The doctor is expected to know; the father is expected to know; the manager is expected to know; the writer who fills newspapers with opinions is expected to know everything. All these assumptions build a glass prison around us. Through it, we see that we don’t know, but we cannot say so. We become, as it were, mute before any question that exceeds our limits, and we compensate for this muteness with voluminous talk about anything and everything, simply to divert attention from our ignorance.

Then comes the moment when all your defenses and tricks collapse, and you say it—sometimes reluctantly, sometimes out of sheer exhaustion: “By God, I don’t know.” And then you await the coming of catastrophe. But, strangely, it doesn’t arrive. Quite the opposite may happen: relief appears on the questioner’s face, and your shoulders suddenly lighten from a burden you didn’t realize you were carrying. You discover that people weren’t expecting an answer from you; they were expecting you to be human. At that point, you realize that the person who says, “I don’t know,” is trusted in everything they say afterward, whereas the person who claims to know everything is trusted in nothing.

Here begins a peculiar pleasure, unlike the thrill of victory or the satisfaction of admiration. It resembles the relief of taking off tight shoes you’ve worn all day. You are no longer required to be an encyclopedia, nor to defend an opinion you voiced without knowledge, nor to remember what you fabricated to avoid contradiction. You discover that admitted ignorance opens doors that pretense had closed. For the person who says, “I don’t know,” asks questions; and whoever asks learns. But whoever claims knowledge deprives themselves of both.

Remarkably, those who best understand the value of ignorance are often the most knowledgeable. True knowledge, when it expands, reveals to its possessor just how ignorant they are. Yet they face a choice: either acknowledge this ignorance and live with its weight, or close the door and pretend that what they know is all there is to know. Those who choose the latter are everywhere: they talk a great deal, listen little, and are irritated by any question they cannot answer, treating it as a personal affront rather than an opportunity for growth and development.

I do not write this from the position of someone who has shed this constant pretense of knowledge, but from that of someone who discovers every day how much they need to practice admitting their ignorance. Two words—“I don’t know” or “Ma adri”—still sometimes lodge in my throat before they emerge. I still catch myself beginning sentences with confidence about things I do not truly know. But with practice, I have become more able to pause in the middle of my responses, marred by false confidence, and find myself saying with pleasure: “Actually… I’m not sure.”

Try saying it just once in a council where everyone expects you to know the answers, and observe their faces. You will discover that what draws people closest to you is not what you know, but rather what you dare to admit you do not know! Dr. Sulaiman Al-Khudhairy