In a discussion in which I participated recently, someone announced that he was learning to "embrace cluelessness."  He described how, for most of his adult life, he believed that he knew a great deal, that he was right about nearly everything, and that people who disagreed with him were invariably wrong.  He had decided to do an about-face and "embrace cluelessness."  "With luck," he said, "when I die, I will be fortunate enough to know absolutely nothing."

Although this goal seemed originally undesirable and was contrary to everything I have learned and believe as a student and an educator, it was strangely appealing to me.  I, too, have been driven by a desire to be always right, have engaged in power-driven arguments to press my point when I believed that I was, and have always wanted to know the answers.  Indeed, though the answers kept changing, I always thought I had them.  "I don't know" has been very hard for me to say; so has "I was wrong."  Though I have frequently said, "I'm sorry," in retrospect, I have to wonder how often – deep down inside – I really meant it.

Perhaps, I thought, it's time for me to consider embracing cluelessness.  After all, wouldn't it be a relief not to feel that I need to be right all the time?  Besides, there's a certain logic to such a viewpoint.  If I have insisted on being right in every disagreement, all those people with whom I have disagreed must have been clueless.  Consequently, cluelessness is the condition of most human beings, and, by embracing it, I become more in sync with my fellows.

The admission of cluelessness goes against the grain of human nature.  Although we know rationally that perfection is impossible among imperfect people inhabiting an imperfect world, most of us strive for some degree of perfection (not noting, of course, that "some degree" of perfection is itself a contradiction).  However, there's a big difference between striving for perfection and expecting perfection – in ourselves or in others – and there's an even bigger difference between striving for perfection and acting as if we were perfect.

Does any one of us have perfect knowledge?  More significantly, has all of humanity ever had perfect knowledge?  Will we ever?  It's unlikely.  At one time, we believed that the Earth was flat and that the sun revolved around the Earth.  These beliefs were the product of the best individual minds of their time and were honored as "facts."  We now believe that they are false.  "Why, those geniuses were clueless," we say, with the certain arrogance of people who have developed new "facts."  To be sure, respecting those two matters, we probably have the right answers, but how many new questions arose as a result of those answers?  Wise men say that every answered question gives rise to an array of more questions.  How many of these have we answered?  How many are perhaps unanswerable?  We remain clueless.

Our relative ignorance is not confined to questions of cosmotology.  So far, we are still engaged in bickering over who is "right" – from wars between nations, to disputes between religious factions, to family arguments – all derived from the conviction by each side that it is right and that the other side is indisputably wrong.  When and if a truce is reached – it may take years and even centuries – both sides admit (perhaps reluctantly) to some degree of culpability, i.e., that nobody was perfectly right.  Everyone was, to some degree, clueless.

The admission of cluelessness is followed, if only temporarily, by a modicum of harmony.  This is as true in the relationships among individuals as it is in the relationships among nations, religions, or ethnic groups.  We might have saved ourselves a considerable amount of grief and tension if we had admitted to being clueless in the first place.

The opposite of cluelessness is, of course, absolute, unyielding certainty that our facts and opinions are indisputably right.  The fruits of such certainty are stress (driven by the constant need to prove that we are right) and conflict (driven by the other party's need to prove that we are wrong).  Wouldn't everything be less stressful and more harmonious if we abandoned our obsession with certainty?  After all, there's an endless list of things about which, by their very nature, we cannot be absolutely certain – starting, for example, with everything in the future.

I concede that "I don't know, and I don't care" is a rotten attitude; it's the epitome of apathy.  I am certainly not suggesting that we should go through life in utter indifference, and I don't believe that we could, even if we wanted to do so.  Being uncertain (not knowing) isn't the same as being indifferent (not caring).  I don't know what the weather will be like tomorrow, but that doesn't mean I don't care.  I don't know how the universe began – and am reconciled to the probability that I never will – but that doesn't mean that I don't care or that I wouldn't like to know.

The problem with certainty, with the ego-driven conviction that we must be right and have all the answers, is that we start to believe that we can control everything, when we actually control very little.  We go about engaged in the frustrating effort to control events and in the even more futile effort to control other people.  Instead of accepting life on life's terms, we try to change events and people to suit ourselves.  We set ourselves up for disappointment because, as every sensible man or woman knows from experience, other people resist change (just as we ourselves do), and hardly anything turns out exactly as we expected.  Life abounds with unpredictable – and uncontrollable – accidents and "happenstances."

Thus, cluelessness, which at first seems to be such a negative quality, becomes something positive – the basis for acceptance, and maybe even for a modicum of serenity.  Not knowing, accepting that we don't, and admitting that we don't can be rather liberating.  It opens the mind, whereas certainty closes the mind not only to thoughts that are contrary to what we believe but also to new ideas.

Ironically, when I was young and therefore had every excuse for not knowing much, the last thing I wanted to be was clueless.  I was still a college undergraduate when I first read the famous quote attributed to Socrates, "The beginning of wisdom is the discovery of one's own ignorance."  I thought that was profound, but I now realize that, deep down, I felt that it applied to everyone else and not to me.  Now, belatedly, with most of my life behind me, I understand what Socrates was saying – embrace cluelessness, not with the idea that someday we will have the ultimate answers to all our questions but with the humble recognition that our goal is more to seek than it is to find.

Ever since I heard about embracing cluelessness, I have been trying to do precisely that.  Of course, I'm doing it imperfectly; old habits are hard to break.  However, I'm feeling a little more serene and less stressed, and I may be gradually becoming a little more tolerant of my fellows, who are, of course, as clueless as I am but are not yet willing to admit it.  Of that I am certain.