Keith Haring said, “If there is no mystery, there is only propaganda.”
While we may think learning is about knowing, I think it’s more about not knowing. The ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus said, “It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows.”
When you know something in your mind to be true, is there open space in your mind for another view? Not likely. When we’re certain that we “know,” we’re at risk of trouble, because we now have something static rather than something that’s fluid.
Certainty is a closed loop.
What we need to do is find a way to-know-and-not-know at the same time–hold what we know in one hand and hold the other hand open. We are fully aware of all the expertise and information we’ve acquired, but we’re not letting it close our minds to other possibilities. We are holding one hand open to other ways of knowing, other things that we can’t come up with on our own.
We need mystery for the expansion of our knowing to happen.