Thursday, April 28, 2022

Day 24 - X


Many, many years ago, in the office where I once worked, a senior colleague used to get irritated whenever replied, "I don't know", to any question of his.

I used to say so because I really didn't know. If I didn't know what else was I supposed to say?

He used to tell me: "You should know. How can you not know?"

If I were to look at it in a positive manner, probably he used to have very high expectations from me; and he expected me to know a lot of things; an answer to every question of his.   

But the fact is how is it possible for anyone to know everything?

I don't think there is anyone who knows everything. Not even science has answers to everything.

Take Covid. Even the best of the world's virologists and doctors don't have all the answers to the mysterious ways the SARS-CoV-2 (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2) has been behaving. 

No one knows if and when there will be another variant of the virus or how lethal will that be.  

In spite of a suffusion of information (verified and unverified), amplified today by social media, we all live in the midst of a void. The void of the unknown. 

This unknown springs itself upon us out of the blue -- in the form of surprises both pleasant and unpleasant. 

How much ever we base our lives on science and reasoning, there's always the realm of the unknown.

It's this realm that is filled by our beliefs, thoughts, hopes, aspirations, dreams, prejudices, fears, etc.

Our quest is to more. But, the more we know, the more questions we have.

The known is finite; the unknown is infinite.

The journey never ends.

(Image by Flavio Poletti from Pixabay)

--------------------

This post is part of the blogging challenge in April every year, wherein bloggers put up one post a day, from A to Z, every day except Sundays. 

I'm participating in #BlogchatterA2Z. I am also on A2Z April Challenge.

9 comments:

  1. It's not bad to not know things. Just do long as "I don't know" is always the answer ;)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Fear of Unknown is ever a fact with every human being Believer or Non-Believer and there is no answer Beyond for that.. There, man sure ends up with Beliefs, Rituals and Austerities which alone can give him/her certain peace of mind even though temporary. Thus seen, Belief in God is a must for ordinary individual. No doubt Science helps everywhere but not in the sphere of taking out my fear of Unknown.. There I alone should get my answer. Very well written Post.. Loved reading it.. Wishes!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hari OM
    Nicely taken from admission to acceptance; we know what we know until we know more! YAM xx
    X=Xanthic

    ReplyDelete
  4. No one knows everything. As Tamil poet Avvayar said: "Katrathu Kai Mann Alavu, Kallathathu Ulagalavu" (“Known is amount of sand in the fist , Unknown is total sand in the world”). I am told this is written boldly at the NASA headquarters. I have not personally seen this.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Profound thoughts! I guess you go with the positive interpretation of your senior colleagues' query.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Perfect thing to say. The unknown X creates so much uncertainty...in hope we move but there is always that lingering dilemma...so well put..in general all our state of minds :) to know is finite...and unknown is infinite!!


    Dropping by from a to z "The Pensive"

    ReplyDelete
  7. I would have probably said "...YOU don't know." And gotten myself in trouble.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Hi Pradeep - I guess ... he should have encouraged you to find out - not castigated you for not knowing ... and lead you on towards the answer. We don't know everything ... but encouragement is essential - cheers Hilary

    ReplyDelete
  9. Well written post. The moment we realize we don't know something, we start knowing it!

    ReplyDelete

I appreciate your comments. Thank you.
If your email ID is enabled in the Blogger profile, I'll reply to your comments via email because you won't have to come back here or look through email notifications to read my reply.
I might copy-paste the replies here if I feel they might be of interest to others as well.
For everyone else, I'll reply here.