The Cycle of Knowing

If you want to turn a visit to the Cinderella Castle into true knowledge, you have to close the cycle.

Photo by Kitera Dent on Unsplash

I will start with this famous quote from Confucius: “To know what you know and what you don’t know, it’s true knowledge.” This is truly the North Star of my learning practice. More importantly, it helps me build a cycle of knowing progress, where I start with “I don’t know what I don’t know” and end up with “I know what I know.”

Here is how I ride the cycle. It always starts with “I don’t know what I don’t know.” It’s like you are visiting Disney World. Right around a corner, you suddenly see the Cinderella Castle hanging over your head. You’ve never heard anything about the magnificent castle before. All you know is what’s in there must be more beautiful than outside. But you are kept outside of the gate. You feel stressed, belittled. You are feeling “you don’t know what you don’t know.” But you are stoked by your curiosity. You want to know what's inside the castle. Believe me, this moment is anything but belittlement. This is where the cycle of knowing starts to take off.

Then you get into the castle. You see all the secrets kept there: the Castle Suite, the grandfather clock, the Royal Table, etc. Meanwhile, you ask your friends, you search the internet. You see? It’s easy to feed…