You Don’t Know Shit
Knowing that you don't know shit gives you an opportunity to be curious about, statistically, everything.
Throughout all of recorded history, we humans have learned shit. Things like "those berries taste good", “those berries are bitter”, and “those berries will make you bleed out your butthole”. And thus, throughout all of history, we have deemed it prudent to pass that information along to subsequent generations (so they don’t bleed out their buttholes). To that end we have painted things on cave walls, sang songs, told stories, invented printing presses, and created Substacks.
Nowadays we pass along all of our collected/collective information in things called "schools". These are the modern day equivalent of cave walls where we pass along all the tips and tricks we've learned already so the next generation doesn't waste a lot of time figuring out what we've already figured out. Not only the berry problem, but things like how gravity works, calculating the area of a circle, and how to pronounce "through". All this shit we have learned needs to be passed down so future humans can build on all that knowledge.
Problem is, as we pass along the shit we have already figured out, we are simultaneously figuring out more shit. It is an absolute onslaught1. We put a robot on Mars! Do you know how many cave paintings that would take? A lot. And we’re supposed to keep up with all of that. It's hard enough for me and I already know about gravity (32 feet per second per second), calculating the area of a circle (Pi times radius squared) and how to spell through (I spell it kinda like “trough” but pronounce it like “threw”2).
Compared to the vast accumulated knowledge of all human kind, even if you know a lot of shit about a lot of shit, you probably only know about 0.00001% of all the shit there is to know (if that).
Which means you don't know shit.
EVERYONE DOESN'T KNOW SHIT
The fact of the matter is there is way too much information being produced all the time to keep up with it. We all know less and less shit by the second. But we're in good company. Turns out nobody knows shit. Even the smartest people on the planet don't know as much as you'd think. Check this out:
Galileo figured out that the earth and planets circled the sun. But he didn’t know everything because...
Sir Isaac Newton built on Galileo’s shit by discovering gravity. But he didn’t know everything because...
Albert Einstein built on Newton’s shit by discovering the theory of relativity. But he didn’t know everything because...
Hawking built on Einstein’s shit by discovering gravitational and spacetime singularities. But he didn’t know everything because there is someone right now building on Hawking’s shit.
Each of those people in their lifetime were probably considered the smartest person on the planet. But each and every one of them “only” brought the whole of human understanding up to a certain point leaving it up to future generations to figure the rest out. We are all standing on the shoulders of the giants that came before us. And we all, even the smartest people on the planet, don’t know shit.
CURIOSITY IS THE SHIT
The good news is that knowing that you don't know shit gives you an opportunity to be curious about, statistically, everything. 99.99999% of the world is open for you to poke around in, ask questions about, and learn shit.
Happiness is "an amused sense of wonderment at what you are experiencing." It suggests the need for a level of curiosity and surprise. If you pass through this world thinking you know everything, all of that “amused wonderment” is lost on you. Relish in the fact that you don’t know it all. Look to others as sources of information that you don’t know and find joy in it.
You don’t know shit. Ain’t life grand?!
One might call it a “shitstorm”.
We all know it’s going to end up being “thru”, but until then… alas.
Outstanding post 😆 and the graphic and footnotes were just the cherry on top of the shit.