Still True: An old entry

I'm taking an ethics course at my community college. It's cheap and interesting. There is one flaw with it though, and it's not so much a flaw in the course as it is a flaw in the people participating in the course. It makes us pretentious. With a little bit of knowledge people will claim to be experts on anything. I know because I've been doing it most of my life. I have a very distinct memory of when I was first playing baseball with my father (I was about 3.5) and I told him in no uncertain terms that I knew more about how to bat than he did. I had received instruction from some player for the L.A. Dodgers that I'd made up on the spot. Now, he knew I was lying, but he also knew that the best way to teach me how and why I was wrong was by attacking the pride that had caused me to lie. He let me prove my ignorance and incompetence by trying to hit his pitches. I failed miserably and was finally humble enough to listen to his instruction. When we are humble enough to admit that we may not actually know everything about everything we are able to learn new things. This is a wonderful moment, this moment of learning. Even more wonderful is when the lessons of humility don't need to be re-learned, merely remembered. It's good not to be embarrassed outside of your own head. It's good to remember that we don't know everything about everything, making us willing to listen to and accept new and different ideas. It is nothing but arrogance to assume we know all about everything, or anything. There is always more to it than we see.