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Wednesday May 17, 2017
Don’t know, know, don’t need to know
By Jim Taylor
Donald Rumsfeld made one memorable quotation during his tenure as G.W. Bush's Secretary of Defense: “There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.”
In The Book of Awesome, Neil Pasricha translated Rumsfeld’s abstract theorizing into an everyday context -- learning to drive a car.
First, we don't know what we don't know. We think that driving will be easy.
Second. we discover how much we don’t know. My first driving lesson, for example, was in an ancient Austin with barely 20 horsepower. But when I dropped the clutch, a ton of metal crow-hopped around a field. I had no idea power could be so uncontrollable.
Third, we know what we know. We learn how to use the gears, the clutch, the brakes, the steering. We learn the rules of the road. And we prove what we know by earning a driver's licence.
Finally, says Pasricha, we reach a state where we don't know how much we know. You drive home on autopilot. You know your car, your route, so well that you no longer have to think about it as you drive.
Predictable patterns
It seems to me that the same sort of sequence applies to other areas of life.
Learning to play a musical instrument, for example. It looks easy. Until you try it. Then you discover that you don't know how to play any notes, let alone the right notes! So you practice, and practice, until one day your fingers act without first requiring conscious thought. And you can’t explain to a novice how you do it – you don’t know how much you know.
Try explaining a perfect golf swing, for example.
Or perhaps you get elected to public office. It feels flattering, an acknowledgement of your talents. Then you find out how difficult it is to handle the conflicting demands, the quarrels, the financial quagmires.... But then you learn how to get things done without taking all the credit. You gather supporters. And one day you find that your role has become almost second nature.
It’s like life itself. To a child, being an adult or parent looks easy. Then you grow up, and discover how much you don’t know. But by trial and error, by experience, you get better at it.
I’m not convinced life can ever go on autopilot, though.
Beyond knowing
Even religion may follow the pattern.
Until a crisis hits, you take your beliefs for granted. Then a crisis – in health, business, or relationships – knocks you for a loop. And everything that you thought you knew, you realize you don’t know at all.
So you fumble your way into the future, blindfolded. You dump some former convictions. Then you find, within the debris of what you thought you knew, some underlying certainties you had previously overlooked.
But this time you know them, for sure.
Eventually, those new notions shape your life, your reactions, without ever having to think about them. They’ve become what you don’t need to know consciously.
Welcome to the new you.
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Copyright © 2017 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups, and links from other blogs, welcomed; all other rights reserved.
To comment on this column, write jimt@quixotic.ca
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YOUR TURN
Only one letter about the content of last week’s column – no too surprising, because many of you had heard the story about the Minkha Cooperative in Bolivia before. I tried to expand the story as an illustration of how the global economy works.
Allan Baker sent along illustrations (which won’t come through in a text-only message) that I’ll have to summarize.
The first picture shows how a “trickle-down” global economy is supposed to work. There’s a stack of wine glasses, and when the bottle is poured into the top glass, the overflow spills down and fills all the other glasses too.
The second picture shows pouring into the top glass, but it simply gets bigger, to absorb all the surplus. The glasses at the bottom get nothing.
Allan suggested the second picture was a more realistic picture of how “Modern Markets” work. He added, “I think that you are illustrating an alternative market system, no?”
Just by way of news, the sale on Saturday May 13 ran for five hours, and raised over $26,000 to forward to the knitters in Bolivia.
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PSALM PARAPHRASES
The lectionary calls for Psalm 66:8-20. When I looked up my various paraphrases, I was surprised at how closely this one might reflect the feelings of the abandoned miners’ wives in Bolivia – especially if instead of “God,” you read “dedicated volunteers.”
8 We owe our survival to God.
We had run out of our own resources.
9 God kept us alive and struggling;
God shielded us when no one else cared.
10 We have been rejected and despised,
persecuted and punished.
But we have come out of our ordeal stronger.
11 Once, we were simply a flood of frightened individuals.
We had nothing in common but fear.
Now we have become a people with a purpose;
our trials have unified us.
12 We were the eternal victims;
we were captives and oppressed.
Yet God brought us through to this new world.
13 We will repay God for keeping watch over us.
From now on, the best of everything we have belongs to God.
14 We made that promise when we were desperate;
we will keep our promise when we are well off.
15 For without God, we would have nothing.
16 We will tell our children,
and they will tell their children,
what God has done for us.
17 We were lost and lonely,
a wandering people, unsure of our future.
And God responded to our plight.
18 God was not like diplomats and immigration officials;
God did not judge us by our appearance.
20 Even during the toughest of our trials,
we never ever felt that God had abandoned us.
Thanks be to God.
For paraphrases of most of the psalms used by the Revised Common Lectionary, you can order my book Everyday Psalms from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.
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YOU SCRATCH MY BACK…
• Ralph Milton most recent project, Sing Hallelujah -- the world’s first video hymnal -- consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at www.singhallelujah.ca
• Isabel Gibson's thoughtful and well-written blog, www.traditionaliconoclast.com
• Wayne Irwin's "Churchweb Canada," an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://www.churchwebcanada.ca>
• Alva Wood's satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town are not particularly religious, but they are fun; write alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.
• Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at twatson@sentex.net
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TECHNICAL STUFF
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