The Lost Art of Not Knowing

My partner James (pictured here in his natural habitat) is the inspiration for this post. During a night of trivia, as we observed other teams looking up answers after each round, he made a comment to me: "People don't not know much anymore." He talked to me about the lost art of not knowing, and he was right.

In our current age, it's impossible to get away from information. We spend less time wondering.

Driving, even on routes I could guess myself, I turn on the navigation. My chances of getting caught up in a newly forming traffic jam are sliced, but so are my chances of wandering around a bit.

Sometimes it feels good to get a bit lost.

Don't know, can't know

The information superhighways have grown enormously in the last few years. What in the past we'd have no way to know except maybe by going to a library (and hoping the book we were handling had accurate, up-to-date information) or asking someone (and hoping they were telling the truth), we can look up without thought.

Yet, it could be asked if it has taken away from us some sense of wonder or inclination to seek answers in our own ways.

Watching a reel recently (I know), I saw a man purporting that if you ask a chatbot to ask you 10 questions about yourself that even you can't answer, that you won't need a therapist anymore. Tongue-in-cheek, of course. Still, he highlighted a very real phenomenon that I have observed recently; namely people turning to technology, especially AI chatbots, in an attempt to know things that can't really be known.

In a sense, when we hand over this process to machines, they become spiritual in nature.

I worry how this may limit people's natural paths towards discovery and self-understanding.

This concerns me especially as curiosity is one of the most robustly studied ingredients to a rainbow of aspects of well-being (Priemysheva et al., 2025), in particular protecting against depression (Priemysheva et al., 2024).

Wonder makes life worthwhile.

Do we understand the difference between facts and opinions?

The truth is, facts are sometimes concrete, but the conclusions we draw from them almost never are. In personal reflection, conversation, life experience, hearing others' stories, and consideration of the facts, we find our way to our own beliefs. Ready access to other people's opinions online makes it easier to shortcut this process into parroting others' ideas as our own.

I have had multiple interactions over the last few years that make me wonder how many people are able to navigate the difference between facts and opinions.

Embracing the subjective nature of ideas is essential to critical thinking. If we pawn off our critical thinking too much to machines, I worry the skill will atrophy.

The virtue of not knowing and 3 things you can do

So, these days I'm driving with navigation turned off a little more and purposely giving myself time to write by hand as I contemplate. Practices like these are returning more opportunity to wander and wonder into my life. I am embracing the virtue of not-knowing, and these are things you can do too.

1. Check Out New Places. Maybe you are driving and you see a park you've never been to, but it's not on the planned route. If you have time, maybe consider stopping in.
2. Journal by Hand. Why write by hand when you can type? Because a piece of paper isn't connected to any AI or social media. Intentionally taking time to journal by hand, especially when you notice a reaction of yours and ask a question to bravely look past what you already know, a known process in Radically Open DBT as self-inquiry journaling, especially gives some ability to loosen up on preloaded ideas and be open to discovery (Lynch et al., 2015)
3. Ask Someone a Story From Their Life. Everyone you know has many stories that you have never heard. Ask about them and listen. This simple practice not only helps us to connect with one another, but it reminds us of how much there is beyond us.

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