Life is one big Q&A, and I’m fine with more Q’s than A’s

qaImage by Fine Art

They say the young question everything, and there’s enough anecdotal evidence to support that contention, but I find the longer I live the more questions I ask — of myself, and of the world.

Just now I was thinking about baseball. A friend of mine is a serious fan who knows the new statistics and the old. He loves good stories. He delves deeply into the game’s metrics and seems to understand the math and the poetry behind it.

Another friend just loves the game, and he doesn’t want to have to think about it too much. So I found myself pondering whether the world of baseball fans has more of the former or the latter. I felt the need to quickly answer that for myself, as if I could not leave it hanging like a curveball waiting to be hit out of the park.

Then, I heard myself think, “I don’t know.”

And I felt how liberating an admission it was, and is. It’s okay to not have the answer to everything. It really is.

Years ago I read a wonderful essay about Cliff Clavin syndrome, a term the writer ascribed to the decidedly male need to show one has an answer for every question. It was a funny piece, and it spoke much truth.

That’s right, Cliff. Never let ’em stump you.

Years after reading that piece I continue to recognize I don’t say often enough that I simply don’t have the answer. I also recognize more and more how I’m most comfortable around other people who don’t pretend they have all the answers. Many of the people most worth knowing are identifiable by the questions they ask, not by the answers they give.

But until further notice, consider “I don’t know” to be an answer I hold in high esteem these days, especially when I’ve felt how freeing it is for me to admit it to myself.

There are some interesting perspectives (and the requisite one-liners) about this and more in “How to Make Your Own Luck” by Maria Popova.

My current favorites:

  • “Change will lead to insight far more often than insight will lead to change.” (Milton Erickson)
  • “Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd one.” (Voltaire)
  • “Being right keeps you in place, being wrong forces you to explore.” (Steven Johnson)