You don’t know what you don’t know

A man I greatly respect once said this to me. I don’t know if it’s something he heard or came up with, but it’s stuck with me over the years and become a mantra for me. It rings true for everyone; you don’t know what you don’t know. It’s amazing to confront the thought at the wonderment of realizing, “you know, maybe I don’t know.” You hear or you may say all the time, “oh dad, I know,” or “Oh yeah, I knew that.” Well, no, you probably didn’t. If you live long enough, you’re bound to learn more and more, and it’s amazing how many of us become more religious as we begin to figure it out. When we’re young, we have this superman cape, and as we age, we become wiser and realize we aren’t invincible. We start to fear death; the unknown scares us because we don’t know what we don’t know.

At that point mortality is very real, and we will understand that it is inevitable. When I faced cancer about 12 years ago, I knew that fear and I knew it well. It wasn’t heaven that I was so afraid of, but what I had to go through to get there, as a friend of mine so elegantly put it. There are so many uncertainties in life, even more after life, but we’re all stumbling around trying to figure it out. The fear of death frightens all, and that’s a very common and relatable problem. It unites us all under the banner of a human condition. Perhaps the most frightening thing of all is what it takes to find out.