There is something about the library that makes me question my entire existence. Perhaps the muffled silence and the endless rows of books sends me down the rabbit holes of inadequacy. Or maybe its the fact that I’m sitting here alone with my own thoughts for far too long.
I am drawing towards the end of my masters and naturally, I’ve once again arrived at the question: what do I do next? As if ending an intellectually stimulating rollercoaster isn’t enough, there is this expectation to know exactly who you are by the end of it and what you anticipate building from it. Instead, I sit and wonder whether I am qualified to do anything at all. Maybe this self-doubt is supposed to motivate us or push us harder to do more work, to learn more, to prove we are worthy.
But when I am writing my dissertation, I sometimes find myself doing the opposite. I beat myself up because I cannot translate whatever’s in my head into plain English on the page.
How does one turn thoughts into pages?
And the more I write, the more questions seem to appear. What is considered enough? What is academically acceptable? What have I missed?
Knowledge is expansive and the internet is a library containing more books that I could never read in a lifetime. Perhaps it is time rather than knowledge itself, that ultimately restricts how much we can answer. We will only know so much until the day we die.
“I Know that I Know Nothing.”- Socrates
At first I saw Socrate’s statement as a matter of ignorance. Now I see it as a form of intellectual humility. A way of learning to accept our limits of knowledge and simply being curious. If we are to resonate with one another, this is probably the way forward - we need to know nothing so that we build an openness to learning with no strings attached. That’s when we can pick up the nuances, gaps and solutions that our linear ways of thinking might dismiss.
Which brings me onto stupidity. I don’t mean stupidity in the sense of lacking intelligence, but more towards being inexperienced, awkward or simply not knowing what you’re doing. I encounter this kind of stupidity quite regularly. Academic work makes me feel stupid. Hospitality makes me feel stupid. Sometimes just being human makes me feel stupid.
I am not the expert in any particular field but I’ve collected fragments of knowledge across various realms. Yet I haven’t accomplished enough in one to feel completely secure. Admittedly, it bothers me sometimes. It’s in moments like these where you feel more human than computerised - less like a carbon copy of a what a system tells you to do.
Stupidity gives humour. It makes life a little less serious. We can make the serious unserious with a little laughter. Of course, there are things we must take seriously, but not to a point where we lose our sense of worth.
Stupidity stays with us in our hall of fame - as memes we can use over and over again. Yes, it feels good to win, but winning knowing that you were stupid along the way makes the story all the more interesting.
Imagine if you were perfect. You would have nothing to work towards, nothing to laugh about in hindsight, no stupidity to celebrate. Perhaps, we could celebrate our stupidity as much as we celebrate success. Think about it…when have we ever used our CVs to connect?
We usually bond over stories. Memes. The times when we were naive. Embarrassing moments that keep us coming back for more. When we shed the layers that shield us from criticism, we discover that our imperfections draw us closer to one another.
We all want to know how to become successful, but what makes the story stick is the resonation of having come from a place of lack or the uncertainty that ‘you could’. It is the story of someone saying, “you can do it, whatever background you come from.”
This is what keeps the pages turning. The thrill of uncertainty.
To turn thoughts into pages, one must keep questioning. Not because we are expected to find all the answers, but to create space for more varied thoughts. Only then can an individual thought become a collective one.
So, in conclusion….keep playing stupid. It might help you discover a question worth asking or even find a friend too.
