I DO NOT KNOW, a beautiful phrase to hear, or say, when having a dialogue with another. Such a statement is the beginning of expanding one’s life. CERTAINTY is many times an expensive  delusion. Stated in an earlier post; CONFIDENCE is belief in yourself. CERTAINTY is belief in your beliefs. CONFIDENCE is a bridge. CERTAINTY is a barricade.

To say I DO NOT KNOW allows one to see another perspective. INSPIRATION is born from a continuous “I DO NOT KNOW.” It is found that a feeling of CERTAINTY plays a greater role in decision-making than conscious contemplation and reason. To seek escape from ambiguity and indecision, which we all experience from time to time, one finds themselves reassured by absolute comments of CERTAINTY. The hunger for CERTAINTY often starves us of the truth.

INTUITIONS, gut feelings, and hunches are tentative ideas that must be submitted to testing through experience or observation. If it can’t be adequately proven than it is merely a personal perspective, not a statement of fact. We must cultivate a mind honed for discerning truth from unreason.

Only in the absence of CERTAINTY can we have open-mindedness, mental flexibility and willingness to reflect on other ideas. “One does not arrive, in words or in art, by necessarily knowing where one is going.” Said artist Ann Hamilton. To say I DO NOT KNOW leaves open so many unchartered routes. A boundless horizon lies ahead. Having a CERTAINTY is a path with many footprints already on the route. Campbell said; “If the path before you is clear, you’re probably on someone else’s.”

INSPIRATION, in life, is born from a continuous I DO NOT KNOW. I DO NOT KNOW develops our lives if you accept it as a challenge to search for the answer. I DO NOT KNOW, really sounds not too bad.

Categories: PERSPECTIVES Philosophical Perspective

ron winnegrad

Ron Winnegrad has been a Perfumer and teacher for 46 years. As a perfumer, Ron has been able to express the world he sees through a rainbow of olfactive and emotive visions. As a teacher, Ron has helped others to see fragrance through his own multi sensorial lens.