On the Importance of Not Knowing

Over the years, I have had the opportunity to listen and learn immensely from people with a great diversity of life experiences. Some of these life experiences were held in common, others were not. I've spent time with people of great wealth and people of great poverty. People of immense privilege and people facing individual and systemic racism. The ex-convict trying to get out but reluctantly drawn back in. The Peruvian child living  happily but primitively in a village high in the Andes. The person struggling with a chronic disease and facing death. Each person is a constellation of experience, an intersection of identities, a whole human being grounded in nothing but constant movement and flux. By listening attentively, employing the powerful human capacity to imagine, empathizing as best I am able, I see our world as an amazing kaleidescope of human experience. Nevertheless, if I lack direct lived experience, there are simply some ways of knowing beyond my grasp. I cannot know how I would truly feel if I was pulled over simply because of the color of my skin. I cannot know how I would truly feel to be torn between my faith and my sexual orientation. I cannot know how I would truly feel to leave my homeland to seek refuge from war only to find no place to go. I can listen, I can learn, I can feel with, I can advocate, I can support, but I some things I simply cannot know. And that's okay...as long as I know how much I don't.