Epictetus Quote on Learning and How Our Willingness To Appear Clueless Is Key To Maintaining Curiosity

“If you wish to improve, be content to appear clueless or stupid in extraneous matters—don’t wish to seem knowledgeable.”

Epictetus, The Daily Stoic (Page 38)

Beyond the Quote (Day 395)

The moment you believe yourself to be knowledgable is the moment you kill curiosity. After all, if you know, you know. What more is there to be curious about? You can only be curious about things you don’t already know. Or, maybe better said, if you think you already know, then there’s no more “know” to add. The problem with believing you know is that it implies the task is completed. It’s a statement of being done. But, acquiring knowledge/ learning is lifelong—never something that is completed. Which is precisely why you shouldn’t even wish to seem knowledgable in any area of your life.

For most, it would appear to me that “curiosity” and “knowledgable” are perceived as phases in one’s life. Like when we go from being students to becoming employees or employers. It’s as if our minds switch from “curiosity mode” to “knowing mode”—as if it’s a switch that can only flip between the two. But, knowing isn’t what switches curiosity off when turned on—it’s the belief of knowing that switches curiosity off. You can continue to gather knowledge and learn for the rest of your life and never stifle curiosity in the least.

In fact, it’s curiosity that is the very engine for learning and acquiring knowledge. It’s as Epictetus outlines above, if you want to maintain that curiosity in your life, you just can’t see yourself as knowledgable—which is what a diploma might imply. You can’t even wish to seem knowledgable. That mindset will completely suffocate any future willingness to learn. You have to be willing to appear uninformed, unsure, inquisitive, clueless, or even stupid. Which will, ironically, lead you to become more of the opposite than those who try to appear to already be more the opposite, ever might dream of becoming.

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