Benefit of The Doubt

It’s completely okay when you don’t know something. You are not expected to know everything. If you do, it’s great, but if you don’t, it’s no worries. We have several ways to know things, by experience, by research and confirmation, or by hearsay. Of course, we could speak more informatively about things we have experienced. We could touch around things we have researched to find confirmation from someone who has more experience. Or maybe, we could spark a conversation by saying very specific words we heard only as hearsay.

It’s great when you know about things, especially the ones which spark conversations.  When people share the same interest towards same things, say hobbies, then the possibility to gain more friends is endless. But, things could get complicated when you think you know about something, when in reality you are just a clueless fuck. It’s about mastering the art of knowing but not knowing.

This applies on any kind of encounters. Naturally, human being likes to know things. For example, this happens to me every morning on my bike ride to work. Usually the driver would ask which way I preferred, and just after I told him the details, he would start murmuring with more complexity, sometimes I knew what he meant and most of the time I didn’t. What would you do if you’re in my position? A. You stick with the route you preferred and rode on every day, or, B. You take time to hear what he had to say, and even if it sounded ridiculous, you would try to reason politely. Which one?

There’s no right or wrong answer on question above. It’s mostly about two person are fighting for the position of power of KNOWING MORE. Does it matter to you if he looks you down because you don’t know as much as he does? If it does to you, well, please continue and fight harder for that. I personally think it’s wiser if you just humble yourself down, as long as your rights as a person are still well maintained. If it feels inferior to give that away, it’s okay then, just my two cents.

Knowing things is like climbing a swinging rope tied to a helicopter. The higher you get on the ropes, the clearer you could see of the facts. Everyone would start on the farthest ties on the ropes, where the swings are extreme and could tear us apart. Those swings of information could sometimes mislead us, and it all depends on our humility to keep learning and keep climbing the ropes, or bombard others with all the swings of information we know, just to look KNOWING. Choose wisely, my friend.

It’s all started with hearsay, which sparks the interest in us, leading to the follow up of the matter, doing our homework of research and confirmation, and when there’s opportunity, the experience itself will come to us. During every single step, our humility is tested by the encounters. It’s natural to humble down to people above us, in terms of everything, but it takes wisdom to keep the humility even to people below us, also in terms of everything.

The benefit of the doubt is to be given to others, not to be doubtfully abused.