I Don't Know

Three of the most powerful words you can use...

The world is a complex place with a ton of things going on at any given time. There are specialties and specialists in almost every aspect, sector, and subject matter of life. Some of them are well studied and provide useful information, or at the very least are very interesting to consider even if you aren’t completely certain that the information is completely accurate.

There are a ton of examples of things that exist that we think we know, but in reality, we are simply parroting the words of someone else who we think knows what they are talking about. That is an inevitable aspect of the world. We are bound to the expertise of strangers. However, that isn’t what this post is about.

Instead, what this post is about is the pontification that people have a habit of making when they do not know the first thing of which they are speaking, and choose to do so anyway. Whether this is an egotistical thing, or something related to embarrassment of not knowing something, perhaps it is because they believe they can create knowledge out of whole cloth and put it out into the world and it suddenly and magically becomes fact. Unfortunately for them, and for the rest of the world, that is not how things work. Just because you speak the words doesn’t make them any more true, nor does it make the world a better place by saying them.

Of course, I deal with the sort that does this all the time in my writing about psychopathy. People create ideas and narratives about it all the time, some of which are so laughably insane that it is a wonder that they can write them out and not have an aneurysm from the sheer volume of misinformation. Some of them are mentally ill, and some of them live in a fantasy world, and some of them are simply so convinced that they are correct they are willing to put things out into the world such as this:

Not true don't talk From all psychopaths not all are the same not all psychopaths have to lack it like bond with some partner nor they don't have to lack trust my boyfriend trust me but only me of course and is bond only with me and hates other people mainly if psychopaths lack to trust others why they would choose to be loyal to them then?We have to also think that we can't know anything about psychopaths if we are not inside their skinsAlso someone knowledge said that studies have shown that psychopaths are capable of emotional empathy at least for one person but you have to be high-functioning, be bordeline psychopathic and be extremely unique to feel pure emotional empathy as psychopath maybe I'm crazy but I trust thisit's rare if PSYCHOPATHS fall in love but it doesn't mean that aren't PSYCHOPATHS just that fell in love why people throw psychopaths into the same bucket? My boyfriend can feel love but only for me also with obssesion of course it's not normal love it's also obssesion during my boyfriend is diagnosed for real primary psychopath and sociopath also by therapist has shizophrenia alsoAnd no he is really psychopath it's not false he was at the hospital on the table for watch at his brain and it showed he is! He wouldn't go there but his mother forced him to go since he is 18 and in French you have to be 19 to do what you want) I saw also how he acted but he is also sociopath of course and don't say that psychopath can't be also sociopath And I'm not lying I don't care if I'm interesting or not actuallyAnd how I say psychopaths probably which have also shizophrenia and bordeline personality disorder or just maybe who knows MAYBE if you're high-functioning, be shizophrenic psychopathic psychopath can fall in love too (with obssesion of course) but for sure it's or it would be really very rare more than psychopathy itself cause psychopathy itself is really rare

Now, I could have been nice to you all and cleaned that up into readable text, but if I have to deal with the headache, so do you. That is exactly how it appeared in my comments section, and I don’t change people’s quotes. I find something untoward about it. This is but a small sampling of the sort of thing that I get fairly often. I am convinced that this person has entirely created their “boyfriend” in their mind and they are trying to reform the world around their fantasy instead of conforming the fantasy around reality, however, that is neither here nor there. The point of sharing that comment is to demonstrate a point.

This person clearly knows nothing about psychopathy. It is very easy to get a lot of misinformation about it, and that’s fine. That’s the world in which we live. Instead of taking the reasonable route, and simply admit that they don’t know anything about it, they have instead created a very fanciful narrative surrounding it, and have hitched their wagon to it like they are on the Oregon Trail about to cross a mountain range. It would have been easier, and vastly better for this person to simply be comfortable with not knowing.

I know that this is an extreme example. The person is likely unwell, almost definitely young, and very ill-educated about something that she is almost fetishizing. However, people have this habit of being so uncomfortable with not knowing something that they simply make it up as they go along, or feel embarrassed about not knowing. I think that this should be the opposite of what should happen. People should embrace not knowing, especially those who are in a position that people look to as an authority on things.

People think that because I know about psychopathy that I know a ton about other things, especially psychological things. I don’t. I really really don’t. Not only do I not have much of an interest in deep diving into psychological studies, as I find them rather tedious to get through, but it is a very complex field in which I lack training in. That doesn’t stop people from coming to me and asking very detailed questions about the deep interworkings of other people’s minds. I can speculate, but often I simply respond, “I don’t know.”

People have a hard time taking that from me, and often will press me. That doesn’t change the fact that I don’t know something, but it got me to thinking about what that sort of pressure might result in when someone feels the emotional weight of being pressured. When I don’t know something, I don’t know it. No amount of pressure is going to make me feel bad about not knowing, inclined to research it for the other person, or pretend that I know what I’m talking about to save face. When I say that I have no idea, I don’t. End of discussion.

I had a conversation with a friend about not knowing, my annoyance with coming across people who clearly do not know things but put out misinformation instead of either admitting that they don’t know and leave it at that. This is particularly noticeable on Quora because it is a question and answer site. You will have a question such as:

What is the medical laboratory hospital attachment action plan sample format in Ethiopia?

This question is clearly asking something very specific and those who answer should have knowledge in the very clearly outlined parameters of the question. Granted, this question has no responses as of yet, but it is almost an inevitability that someone will have an answer that begins with,

“I don’t know, but”

No, no but. You said you don’t know. You shouldn’t have even begun to answer the question. There is no, “I don’t know, but” for that question. It is a very clear and precise question that a person wants a clear and precise response about. Your, “I don’t know, but” response is taking up your time, the questioner's time, the internet’s time, you name it, it’s a waste of time, and yet that person wrote it anyway. Why? Because they felt some inclination to weigh in on a topic that they have no working knowledge of.

In this particular case, just moving on and not answering was the correct course of action. However, this is one form of the plague of, “I don’t know but”, that is in the world. Often you don’t even get the, “I don’t know, but”. Instead, you get a person telling you something that they have no clue about to begin with. Whatever that need is to have an opinion or an answer when there isn’t one to give is an inclination that should be overridden by the internal comfort of not knowing something. It is invaluable to not know things. I know that might seem contradictory, but not knowing is an opportunity to learn.

If a person would rather pretend to have information instead of acknowledging that they do not, they are blocking themselves off from learning anything. Other people, people who do have the information that is being sought after can then offer the knowledge that they have, thus enriching everyone involved. That is a preferred outcome, or at least I think that it is.

“I don’t know” allows others to interact with us in a way that provides new concepts and ways of seeing the world. The world created in our heads is tainted by our own desires and wishes. Allowing those desires and wishes to be challenged by the outside world is a very powerful thing not only for us as we grow as human beings, but for those that asked the question to begin with. Being okay with not knowing is one of the biggest fertilizers of a person there is in the world. There is no point in time when a person knows everything. We are lucky to learn a tiny percentage of a fraction of the information out there, and even then, that information might be wrong.

There is a series on Netflix called Ancient Apocalypse, with a guy named Graham Hancock. This guy has been challenging the notions that archeologists have set down as historical record for years. Such as the age of the Egyptian pyramids, whether or not there was a catastrophic flooding event, and when humans first were able to create massive stone monoliths. He has a lot of ideas, he has a lot of evidence to support those ideas, and he presents them in a compelling way.

Is he right?

I don’t know.

I have no idea if he’s right, but what I do know is that I see a lot of the same behavior from the “experts” as I have seen when the “experts” of psychopathy get challenged, which more or less comes down to egotistically temper tantrums, which tends to make me inclined to take Mr. Hancock a bit more seriously than perhaps I would have otherwise. I find the ideas and the evidence very interesting, but what’s more, it is worth considering. Instead of doing so, the “experts” call him a quack, a pseudoscientist, and on and on. The same behavior can be seen when anyone challenges the notions of what a “psychopath” is, and I am not referring to myself, I am referring to people who have advanced degrees and are tenured professors at elite universities. They disagree with Hare, therefore they are a total waste of time.

Imagine how much better our healthcare would be if when you went to a doctor with a complaint that they don’t have an answer for they said as much instead of dismissing you.

Imagine how much more curious a child would be if the parent admitted not knowing something, but instead of dismissing that child with a shrug and a lie they said, I don’t know, but let’s find out together.

Imagine how many fights could be avoided in a relationship if instead of making assumptions, a person decided that they don’t know what their partner is thinking, and actually asked them instead of assigning their behavior a thought process that doesn’t exist.

There are so many aspects of the world where, “I don’t know”, is the far better response than contrive BS that has nothing to do with reality. Instead, people insist that they do know, or feel compelled to create an answer where they lack information because they don’t want to look bad. It’s unfortunate, and it results in people not confronting their limitations and being okay with them. It is a continuation of the lie that can be told for the comfort of the soul.

For those of you wondering about the person above, the rambling comment. Yes, I did reply, and she did not take it well. I ended up having to block her which spurned on a rather pointed rage at me as a person that ended up being placed in numerous comments sections literally hundreds of times over:

When psychopaths don't lack oxytocin and just produce it differently why they cannot bond then? Like wtf? She just pretends to be psychopath bruh everyone can say that are psychopaths on online why psychopaths would tell to everyone immediately that are psychopaths if in real have mask? Like whaa? And not all psychopaths have to lack it like bond with some partner nor they don't have to lack trust my boyfriend trust me but only me of course and is bond only with me and hates other people mainly if psychopaths lack to trust others why they would choose to be loyal to them then?We have to also think that we can't know anything about psychopaths if we are not inside their skinsAlso someone knowledge said that studies have shown that psychopaths are capable of emotional empathy at least for one person but you have to be high-functioning, be bordeline psychopathic and be extremely unique to feel pure emotional empathy as psychopath maybe I'm crazy but I trust thisit's rare if PSYCHOPATHS fall in love but it doesn't mean that aren't PSYCHOPATHS just that fell in love why people throw psychopaths into the same bucket? My boyfriend can feel love but only for me also with obssesion of course it's not normal love it's also obssesion during my boyfriend is diagnosed for real primary psychopath and sociopath also by therapist has shizophrenia alsoAnd no he is really psychopath it's not false he was at the hospital on the table for watch at his brain and it showed he is! He wouldn't go there but his mother forced him to go since he is 18 and in French you have to be 19 to do what you want) I saw also how he acted but he is also sociopath of course and don't say that psychopath can't be also sociopath And I'm not lying I don't care if I'm interesting or not actuallyAnd how I say psychopaths probably which have also shizophrenia and bordeline personality disorder or just maybe who knows MAYBE if you're high-functioning, be shizophrenic psychopathic psychopath can fall in love too (with obssesion of course) but for sure it's or it would be really very rare more than psychopathy itself cause psychopathy itself is really rare

If you got through all that, huzzah to you, because I couldn’t. It is a messy mind that wrote that. One far from being comfortable in their own skin. It’s unfortunate.

If you are wondering why the second part of the Twin Flame post hasn’t come out yet, it is because I am still researching some things. The Twin Flame thing is very interesting on a lot of levels, but it is very easy to dehumanize those who are involved in this situation that I want to write on, so I am doing additional research. even then, the post will be my thoughts. I am not in any way an expert in cults or in high control groups, which is a part of the post. Give me a bit of time to get enough knowledge that I think I can present a balanced and cohesive picture for you all. Thanks for your patience.

Also, as always, if there is something you want a post on, let me know in the comments and I will see if it is something that I think I can provide insight into, or if it is something that interests me.