133. French novelist Anatole France wrote: "An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't." What don't you know? (Brown)
In my European history class we recently studied a few European thinkers. One of them was Blaise Pascal. Pascal said that we can never know everything. There is way too much stuff in this world and way too much knowledge out there that no human being can ever know everything. He also said that no human being can know nothing either. We either know a lot or something, we are in the middle of two infinities; everything and nothing.
After reading this I started to wonder how much I know. I thought that graduating from school meant that you know a lot, but the truth is that you can never know a lot. I do not know a lot. I also have no idea what I don’t know. I don’t know what is going to happen ten years from now. I can make an educated guess, but I will never know for sure until that day arrives. I don’t want to know what is going to happen ten years from now, today, because then it ruins the excitement and mystery of it all.
I don’t know why the global population is increasing, even though many methods of controlling it have been introduced and applied to. I don’t know why cats can’t bark, and dogs can’t meow. I also don’t know why there are two “oo” in the word “blood.” The point is that it doesn’t matter what you don’t know, because you will eventually find out. It is not necessarily good to make a list of things you don’t know and then study them to find out. You can learn a lot by just listening to others, and observing them. You don’t have to read books or be in a class to learn. Like Mark twain said “Don’t let education get in the way of learning.”
I don’t know if I will ever get an A+ in math, and I don’t even want to know. There is no point sitting and thinking about something pointless like this anyway, you should go out and seize everyday of your life. Let your life be a mystery, and then everything will become easier and you will know more. The difference between how much you know and don’t know will be less if you do this. I don’t know if I am ever going to get into my dream college, but I am living my life to find out. The things that I care about but don’t know that yet, will be unveiled as life goes on. I know that I don’t know, but I don’t want to know what I don’t know because of the fact I don’t know.
