“Maybe that’s enlightenment enough: to know that there is no final resting place of the mind; no moment of smug clarity. Perhaps wisdom… is realizing how small I am, and unwise, and how far I have yet to go.”

-Anthony Bourdain

Nobody has memorized all the knowable digits of Pi. I’m sure that some people can recite the Constitution word-for-word, but if you asked them to say “hello” in every possible language they would be lost. Very few people can understand every geopolitical issue, and nobody can do that while memorizing the atomic weight of all the elements on the Periodic Table.

Being unaware is human. Being uneducated is not a tragedy. But not striving to learn is.

We live in a digital age, which, for all its flaws gives you the ability to find out almost anything you could want to know. Almost any answer to your question is one Wikipedia page or Reddit post away. Of course it’s easy to look up a question that should be common sense in the privacy of your own Google search history, but publicly declaring that you have a gap of knowledge is difficult. That doesn’t mean it’s not worthwhile. Raising your hand in class to ask a “stupid question” comes with temporary embarrassment, but that has to be better than staying in the dark.

Ignorance shouldn’t be blissful. The next time you don’t know something, ask someone who does.

-Charlotte Shields-Rossi