Knowledge, the source of validation?

As we have entered this very new year with all its possibilities and perceived impossibilities, it's so easy to get lost in the "having to know" and needing to "figure out" how the year will pan out. My friend, the astute and incredible wordsmith Zama Moyo shares his thoughts. 

We place a high premium on knowledge. You need not go much further than your primary school memories to see it: think of the feeling you got when, being somehow the only kid who knew the answer to the teacher’s question, you confidently raised your hand (in fact you had to contain yourself from leaping up in excitement) and proceeded to give the answer.

 

Or inversely, that one kid who always seemed to know a little more than most was in equal measure admired and disliked. Such a know-it-all.  Yet even this dislike was only there because deep down we wanted the same validation he did for knowing all that stuff.

 

And then our entire schooling careers are peppered with those familiar phrases that grace the classroom walls: ‘Knowledge is power’; ‘Know Your World!’ (Usually above those circular,blue globes at a corner of the class). Less obvious, those Latin mottos on our high school crests invariably have one or more of the following words: Conscientia; Scientia; Cognitio; Prudentia- all of which, of course, are a variation of what may be translated as ‘knowledge’.

 

We should place a high premium on knowledge. It can be the difference between victory and annihilation, break-through and frustration; between passing and failing a grade, and yes, even life and death. 

 

But the mistake of making knowledge the source of our validation is, I think, just as fatal as ignorance. As impressionable kids in the classroom we saw affirmation going to the kid who had the right answer. The residue of that followed us right into high school, with our dignified blazers reading Scientia something something. There, we put more pressure on ourselves to know more things (sometimes prodded by our teachers and environment): Know what subjects you should and should not do, know the people that will give us the most social cool points; know which university you will go to, know what your entire life will look like!

 

We have missed a trick if we only affirm the kid with the (right) answer more often than we do the kid with the courage to raise his hand.

 

I think what pre-schoolers can teach us is that beyond knowledge we need awareness. When a child is aware of the presence of her caregiver, then the knowledge of where her next meal will come from is irrelevant to her. Mom=security=food. Dad=protection=clothes. In each case, the awareness of the former trumps the knowledge of the latter.

 

So as we look forward to 2016, how about we stop obsessing about knowing where we’ll be in the next three years? Next decade? Heck, even in the next 12 months!  Vision and anticipation are great tools for navigating a world with endless possibilities and encounters. But deeper still, since we can’t know the future, what (or who) do you need to be aware of right here and right now?

 

We won’t have the answers all the time, but Oh! To be free to raise our hands in courage anyway.

 

Scientia cum libertate!

Zama L Moyo 

Checkout his blog Zama-m.blogspot.com

Happy 2016! Here's to resting in and enjoying the present :)!