Understanding More

I believed before that as I grew older and gained more experiences, I would become more proficient at understanding the various life situations that I encountered. I would have answers because each complex set of circumstances would become a derivation of a smaller set of basic circumstances, and similar situations demand similar approaches. This is not true. More knowledge does not simplify. Having more experiences means only having the awareness of numerous never-to-be-repeated outcomes, which have not the effect of guiding to a solution, but of offering as many more solutions as experiences might dictate. Multi-leveled circumstances require multi-leveled solutions that must be applied with multi-leveled vision, probably the most difficult aspect of all of this. I suppose that I've been amply warned that life gets harder before it gets harder again, and then ends, but I haven't yet figured out a way to take that attitude and shape it into a motivating force.

With this understanding comes yet more humility. Although it has been true in the past, now more than ever before when I contemplate my past selves, I retroactively recognize the absurdity of my confidence in my previous situational and life awareness. People are complex, and the world interacts with itself in complex ways, but in order to protect my sanity, and probably most of us do this, I reduce those complexities to single simple thoughts, or even a binary system, positive or negative. That person is good in my mind, that person is bad. This approach is totally necessary and reasonable for normal function, but only if it is used as a foundation and not as a multi-tool. Without additional layers, a person would be forced to become inflexible, only capable of rudimentary responses such as anger or unaware selfishness. Additionally, it can be used as a mirror for oneself, as self-reflection of why a certain person is good or bad can evoke a wealth of understanding of personal biases and assumptions that would otherwise be invisible.

There is a deep and obligate paradigm of the self that I have come to possess, one that is constantly changing and growing wider and more durable. It does not serve the purpose of giving me the pride of comparative understanding; it gives me the unpretentious vision that the wisdom of a person is not so much in the amount of knowledge already gained, but in the awareness of the ever-increasing amount of knowledge not yet learned.