I know that I do not know

Less Foolish is what I am aiming for. According to Peter Limberg from The Stoa, “Once we become the most foolish, we can start becoming less foolish together. Foolishness is what gives wisdom a chance.”

Isn’t that quote something? I have always loved to be foolish cos it made me want to improve and not be foolish so I would learn more. In fact, I got to be comfortable with this fact after the many series of denigrations growing up with a father that always called me stupid (Yes, it damaged my self confidence but on the other hand, it made me comfortable to know that I knew nothing). This propels me everyday to strive to be better than yesterday and to know more than I did the day before. I am proud that I still strive to learn everyday and I couldn’t or wouldn’t imagine living life another way.

But I have been deeply disappointed by those same so called “adults” or “elders” or “leaders”, that claim to know things with so much arrogance only to find out upon growing up that they know jack.

Many of these “elders” demand respect but have done little to nothing to receive any. They have bullshitted their way through life and lied most of the time in order to maintain appearances and to protect their egos (Sadly, still disappointed). To top it, they refuse to take responsibility for their actions and blame others or God, while never thinking of rectifying the damage the blatant lies have caused to the socio-cultural landscape. These over grown babies only care about themselves and the present disregarding the future and the long term consequences of their actions.

These are the foolish people of course! So according to Peter Limberg, he lists a provisional taxonomy on the four types of fools:

Someone who does not know things, with embodied knowingness; The first class of fool can be called “the idiot” - the person who talks shit without thinking, spouting all kinds of ignorance with the sense they know everything. The elders to I refer to back home, they are mostly found in the villages and suburbs, they always demand the most respect cos that is the only leverage they seem to possess yet have nothing material or intellectual to be respected.

Someone who knows things, with embodied knowingness; The second class of fool is what Taleb calls the “Intellectual Yet Idiot” (IYI) - the person who has a “good education” with the stink of arrogance regarding his intelligence, which is really a cope for their fear of being an imposture. This fool is the main influencer of our broken legacy institutions, and they lack a complexity awareness, responding to the complex with complicated means. They are also the ones steering the COVID response measures, fucking up things pretty badly, while scapegoating the first class of fools to cover up their mistakes. What a foolish thing to do. The kind of elders/leaders that hold public offices, mainly found in cities and tend to speak very loudly just to assert their will. They like to speak constantly and love to hear the sound of their voice.

Someone who knows things, with embodied unknowingness; The third class of fool is interesting; this is where many in The Liminal Web are at: having the capacity to embody unknowingness, while using many mental models to navigate complexity. They often know as much as the IYI, but they are not playing the rivalrous game that embodied knowingness invokes.

Someone who does not know things, with embodied unknowingness; The last class of fool is where Socrates hangs out - the holy fool. The Buddhists called this “crazy wisdom” and the Christians called this “foolishness for Christ.” This class of fool has the embodied unknowingness like the weirdo, but all the fancy models fade, leaving them with knowing they know nothing. This allows them to be in the fullness of their foolishness. I will refer to this as being “foolbodied.”

I find myself struggling between the last two types of fools. I know I do not know and is willing and eager to learn more but of course, I do know some things but am always open to be corrected and unlearn what I learnt.

See you next week!

- Ope

*sorry this entry is coming late. had a busy day.