Right after the presidential election last November, I wrote about having more empathy for one another. In the post, I suggested “suspending judgement” when it comes to interacting with someone who believes differently than you.
I don’t know about you, but I’m finding a lot of people who think differently than me. I see them online, in my local community, and in different parts of the world—each with their unique experience and perspective. More often than not, the interactions I observe in these spaces are pretty negative and nonconstructive.
This past week, I was thinking about how to navigate different perspectives while also keeping my sanity. For sure, there’s a time when it’s better to disengage from it all—or, as Austin Kleon would describe it, to plant your garden. But then there’s a time to engage with it and to listen. Rick Rubin writes about this in his book The Creative Act: A Way of Being:
We often take shortcuts without knowing it. When listening, we tend to skip forward and generalize the speaker’s overall message. We miss the subtleties of the point, if not the entire premise. In addition to the assumption that we are saving time, this shortcut also avoids the discomfort of challenging our prevailing stories. And our worldview continues to shrink.
So many of today’s problems are the result of people avoiding the good friction that is produced from engaging in discussions that expand our worldview. Rubin’s comments reminded me of an old friend I had in grad school. Whenever I talked with Peter, I could tell that he was listening to me so authentically hard—not in the “active listening” sense, but more of a completely-and-silently-focused sense—that I always felt challenged to really pay attention to what I was saying, in a good way, to make sure it all added up. I had to clearly express myself and I knew if I didn’t, I’d be met with a thoughtful follow-up question because Peter truly wanted to understand my perspective.
Like many, I loved Ted Lasso. One of my favorite scenes from the series is when Ted takes on Rupert in a game of darts to prevent him from tormenting Rebecca in the owner’s box. Before sealing his victory with three extremely difficult shots, Ted calls out Rupert’s air of superiority and invites him to be more curious.
In the clip, Ted quotes Walt Whitman: “Be curious, not judgmental.” While it turns out Whitman didn’t actually say this, the message rings true. Curiosity is valuable. It’s a perspective and orientation toward life that grows your worldview.
In his book Show Your Work, Austin Kleon quotes some thoughts that C.S. Lewis penned for his introduction to Reflections on the Psalms (1958). Here’s Lewis:
I write for the unlearned about things in which I am unlearned myself. It often happens that two schoolboys can solve difficulties in their work for one another better than the master can. When you took the problem to the master, either he was so fluent in the whole subject that he could not understand the difficulty, or he had forgotten what it was like to be puzzled by it. The fellow-pupil can help more than the master because he knows less. The difficulty we want him to explain is one he has recently met. The expert met it so long ago that he has forgotten.
As a teacher, I love this quote. I love that teaching is a reflective practice. You’re always a student of the profession, even as you become a seasoned professional. It’s a dynamic job that you can always build upon. You never arrive, which can be frustrating at times, but in the end I think is what makes it such a worthwhile pursuit. Teachers inspire curiosity and the good ones continue to be curious themselves.
Our experience is valuable but how does it compare to a beginner’s mindset? What limiting beliefs have emerged as a result of our self-confidence in our abilities and our experiences?
As it were, the very next chapter I read in Rubin’s book was entitled “Beginner’s Mindset.” In the chapter, he tells a story about the board game Go, which is said to be around 4,000 year old.
Go is one of the most complex games ever created by humans. There are more possible board configurations in Go than there are atoms in the universe. Back in 2014, the artificial intelligence research company DeepMind started development on an AI system that would be capable of solving complex problems. They called it AlphaGo and intended it to take on the best Go players in the world. But the way they designed AlphaGo to learn the game was unique. DeepMind co-founder and CEO Demis Hassabis described it like this:
Traditional games engines comprise thousands of rules handcrafted by strong human players that try to account for every eventuality in a game. The final version of AlphaGo does not use any rules. Instead it learns the game from scratch by playing against different versions of itself thousands of times, incrementally learning through a process of trial and error, known as reinforcement learning. This means it is free to learn the game for itself, unconstrained by orthodox thinking.
Two years later, AlphaGo had taught itself enough to take on legendary Go player Lee Sedol. More than 200 million people from around the world tuned in for the televised event. During the game, AlphaGo made a series of unconventional moves, which culminated in move 37, a completely unique and creative move that no human professional would ever have made. Professional Go player Fan Hui said the follow of move 37:
Move 37 goes against all conventional teaching and no experienced human player would ever have played it. In fact, we know from AlphaGo’s calculations there was just a one in ten thousand chance of a player selecting that move. It was a moment of inspiration that came from its unique approach to the game. Unlike the way I — and all other human players — approach Go, its decisions are unencumbered by the tradition, theory, and teaching of human play. Instead, it learns the game for itself, giving it the opportunity for fresh thinking and leading to a unique ‘free spirited’ style which in turn has unshackled human players from tradition and allowed us to also think differently about the game.
AlphaGo’s success speaks to the power of a beginner’s mindset that isn’t limited by culture, tradition, or experience. It’s a fascinating story, which you can read more about on this Google Arts & Culture page. There’s also a documentary about it that’s available for free streaming here.
Rubin concludes with this about the AlphaGo story:
There’s a great power in not knowing. When faced with a challenging task, we may tell ourselves it’s too difficult, it’s not worth the effort, it’s not the way things are done, it’s not likely to work, or it’s not likely to work for us.
If we approach a task with ignorance, it can remove the barricade of knowledge blocking progress. Curiously, not being aware of a challenge may be just what we need to rise to it.
Jason Kottke references this too, in a post called “Ignorance and the curious idiot.” Bringing it back to Ted Lasso, Kottke writes about how the creative team initially came up with the idea for the show—they wondered, “What if we did a show where the main character was an ignorant guy who was actually curious?” Kottke goes on to link curiosity with paying attention, and paying attention with love.
I like the idea of emptying ourselves so we can learn, of seeking simplicity in the midst of life’s complexities, and of paying attention as a form of love. I like remaining curious, suspending judgment, and having a beginner’s mindset.
In the end, there’s so much we don’t know and that’s okay. Maybe it’s enough not to know. And maybe it’s better to know that much than to think we know more than we actually do. One of my favorite songs from the Canadian band The Sadies is “Why Be So Curious?” I think it’s a good and peaceful place to wrap this up. The lyrics go like this:
Feelin’ me the sun, glow so big and warm upon everyone
Be the tallest tree, grow as rain falls down upon everyone
Look at the clouds and the stars as they glow
Why be so curious when nobody knows…
The truthHear the birds all sing, the most beautiful things hear what they sing
Feel the love you feel, don’t poison the well with worry and fear
Look to the simple and be like the snow
Why be so curious when nobody knows…
The truthWatch the river flow, as you get right in and feel the love flow
Move along the way, float with care and ease off to the seasLook at your fingers and look at your toes
Why be so curious when nobody knows?
Nobody knows…
The truth
