The More I Learn The Less I Know

The more I learn the less I know

I’m sure that’s a quote from someone but if it’s not, it can be now, from me. Since being away from my family I’ve realised that there is a lot they haven’t taught me—not in a “wow why didn’t you tell me this stuff?!” kind of way but more in a way where I realise most people around me have a better understanding of social situations and general knowledge than I do. Don’t get me wrong, I’m full of random crap that couldn’t help you in an exam but would make you winner of the ‘random shit’ quiz 5 years running. I’ve described my knowledge before as knowing as much content as I would need to get an A* at A-Level, but in things that would never come up in an exam. Think of it like: Stephen Fry and I would never be beaten in a pub quiz. But since coming to this new place with new people, I’ve realised there is a lot of ‘stuff’ that I don’t know about: for instance, whether it’s okay to ask certain questions, or do certain things. One thing that has been prominent in my life as socially unacceptable for many years is lying down on the floor: in school, at home, shopping, wherever I am, I just like being on the floor, sitting or lying. Obviously I’ve never just lay down in the frozen food aisle, or in the middle of the road (apart from when it’s super quiet like in the height of summer or the middle of the night, because who hasn’t dared themselves to lie down in the middle of the road?!) but at 6^th form at lunch time when people start talking about things beyond my comprehension (see this post), or in church when trying to explain to a 3 year old why my hair is so long. Since coming to drama school, however, it’s suddenly 100% okay to lie down in the middle of the corridor, or read a play upside-down in the common room (hats off to the 3^rd years who never bat an eyelid when I do this). But I still get asked if I want to sit on a sofa at friend’s house when I’ve chosen a nice little seat on the floor. One of my acting tutors often talks about when his past students or colleagues have realise they do something, and why, and I’m waiting for the day I understand why I prefer the floor to anywhere else. I’m sure there is a reason, I just have yet to find it.

Lying down isn’t really what this post is about though, it just demonstrates one of the things that gets me tied in knots. It is okay in some places, but not in others, to do certain things or ask certain questions, and I’m often left wondering why such a dramatic change in dynamic is created. You have to dress like ‘this’ ‘here’, and ‘that’ ‘there’. I was talking to a friend about whether it’s okay to ask someone if they’re a virgin, and she said if you’re on a personal level then yes. I was left with two musings after that. Firstly, my relationship with my class-mates isn’t necessarily all-round personal but we almost all know who’s had sex and who hasn’t. Secondly, how do you know if you’re ‘on a personal level’? Now all I hoped for was a yes or no answer, but I was left with a provoked thought and another question. This is one thing I haven’t learned—what questions are okay to ask. I spend a lot of my time asking others if I’m allowed to do things; I wonder actually why I need constant reassurance that my actions are sound; someone offers for me to sit on a sofa and I ask if I’m genuinely allowed to. I ask if it’s okay to ask the question I’m about to ask. Why can’t you ‘mix’ alcohol, and what even is ‘mixing’? How do you know what alcohols are different, because even two spirits are made in different ways and why is it okay to drink milk with baileys but not anything else because at the end of the day they’re both alcohol.

I remember the first time I actually ‘drank’ alcohol. My parents had gone away for the weekend, and my sister had a friend round. They wanted to have a drink and offered to make me one. I didn’t understand why my sister would give me alcohol and she said that our parents wouldn’t condone me drinking, but she would rather give me my first drink in the house, when she’s around and can look after me, and for me to be able to safely find out what I do and don’t like, and what does and doesn’t agree with me. I liked this because she was teaching me one of those things my parents didn’t, and wouldn’t have thought to teach me. There are things in my mind these days though that aren’t taught, and as I say I find myself asking more and more questions which people often don’t have the answers to, so of course my family couldn’t have taught me because they’re general questions about complicated matter. But I do wish I had an understanding of the ‘time and place’ for other questions, or indeed the ones I have.

The complicated questions I have, I don’t know who I can ask. I have friends I have made who I have only recently met, who I don’t want to overwhelm with all of my confusing thoughts, and I have friends I have known for years who I know for sure can’t answer my questions. I often want to just write them down so I don’t forget them, so I can remind myself that I have thought about these things (again like the other blog post). One question I had tonight was ‘how do we know what questions are?’

‘How do we know what questions are?’ is very loaded in itself, and there are several aspects I would like explaining to me. Firstly, how do we know when a question is asked? I’m not talking about punctuation, but how do we know that someone has said a something we are required to think about and respond to? The language of course! But again, language is but a symbol of what we’re actually trying to do; how do we know what the words mean? Where did the intent behind these words come from and how is it that we recognise them as inquisitive or probing words? Define ‘how’, is one of the things I would like to do. Another word I have often wondered about defining is ‘it’: what does ‘it’ actually mean? These things get me wrapped up in feelings and thoughts and once again leave me having an existential crisis. The next part of my question is about the answer. How and why do we respond to questions the way we do? This is all very confusing to me and I’m sure it’s no clearer to you but if you’re a philosopher who has any thoughts on this then please do get in touch via my blog email so we can have a chat! How do we understand our own responses, how do we have the freedom to think on what has been given to us, how is that formulated into a response, and why do we give it?

Another thing that has me all confused at the moment, is friendship, liking and loving people. Our first project on our foundation was a devised piece of theatre on the theme of ‘love’. Such a vague theme brought so many different approaches, but once again left me with more questions than answers (which I suppose is what good theatre aims to do, but I do find it often frustrating, how stupid or insignificant I feel). The only person I know I truly have ever loved is my brother, Joshua, who I mentioned in my previous blog post. I only know I love(d?) him because of how much I miss him in mourning. Because of the physical sensations I get when I think of him, or my emotional reactions to when I remember that he is gone and is never going to come back: I won’t ever see his face again in life or feel his tiny arms hug me. So how do I know who I love in living and waking? I tell Heather, my friend from Nottingham, that I love her very often, and my sister, and even these days my parents. But I don’t know how I know that feeling. I have no discernible image or gesture that tells me I love them, or even how I feel about them. In terms of liking people and forming friendships, I have formed many friendships since moving to Birmingham, but I don’t know how they happened. I have friendships with Heather, Stefi and Karen, all of whom I met at Christian Union, and Bobbi, Anna and Emma who are on my course. I don’t know how I know that I like these people though. I struggle to define how it is that I want to talk to them, or see them. I’m not sure what the feeling of attachment is, or whether I have it towards these people now, or ever will. I mentioned about how I’m not homesick in my previous blog post, and how the only person I miss is my brother, and that furthers my feeling that I don’t know who I love, like or am friends with. People usually ‘miss’ their friends, and I often tell Heather and Meghan and Karina that I miss them, but in reality I don’t understand what that is. For me, saying it, it could be that at that moment I wish I was playing Minecraft in Meghan’s bed while her mum cooks kickass wedges, or that I was drinking tea with Karina after that bloody freezing December morning photoshoot which saw me wearing several sleeveless dresses, or snuggled under a blanket with Heather playing one of the many films we recommend to each other but never get round to actually watching. I don’t know how I know these things, but I do, and I don’t understand how I can feel the things that cause me to think these things, but I can say them and believe them so they must be how I feel. I asked Stefi how one knows if they’re friends with someone. She responded with a couple of comments, one about just knowing you like a person, another about feeling certain things, as if you get a sense that you and this person will get on well. I understand about the feelings of ‘this person and I are going to get on well’. I have the same sense with others but negatively—I meet a person and feel something not necessarily that I would choose to feel. I do wait before I consciously think that don’t like them, but somehow I feel I just don’t get a spark how I do with other people (like I did with Stefi and Bobbi), then they do something or say something which I feel gives me almost a reason to dislike them, or it could be something they don’t say. It could be that they use an opinion I disagree with, or something as shallow as they kept scratching the back of their hand when answering questions I asked. In terms of forming relationships, some people I don’t necessarily feel anything for immediately, but the second or third time I see them I realise I want to talk to them or them to talk to me; that happened with Karen. That’s another feeling that I guess is construed as friendship. I hope it is, as these people are nice and I do enjoy their company; another deal in the package of friendship I think? I just think it’s interesting the different ways ‘friendships’ form, and confusing about what these feelings and ‘friendships’ actually are.

Tonight (26/11/15) I was going to ask a friend my question about questions, but thought on it for a little while and realised what I briefly mentioned earlier: I didn’t actually want an answer, I just wanted to write it down so I could remember that I had thought it. Sometimes people think a question, then answer the question. Have you ever forgotten something, only to remember it later and kick yourself that you didn’t remember when it was relevant? Have you ever realised you know something, perhaps someone asks a question and you know the answer and it surprises you? I feel like I’m writing this in the hope that a combination of those two scenarios might happen, or neither in fact. I didn’t intend for this post to be so long, and congratulations if you’re still here, I only just am, to be honest with you. If I ever come up with an answer for my ‘questions’ here, I may or may not share them, I may or may not write them down and I may or may not even remember why I thought of them. This much I can say for myself though:

The more I learn, the less I know. Today or tomorrow, when I have thought more thoughts than before, and learnt more things than now, I will be a different person to who I was, but the old me will still be there, contributing to who I am now.