I don’t know why, but there are days I wake up and realize:
"What’s up with you today, looking so innocently dumb?"
Yeah. Sounds strange but true. But thinking back, it's not too wrong.
It's not that I try to belittle myself. It's just that I once firmly believed that I understood quite a lot of things in life.
You don’t need to be as wise as Professor Cu Trong Xoay, but at least enough to confidently sit at the feast of life without feeling too out of place.
Then suddenly one beautiful day, I discovered:
What I know is just a tiny piece in the gigantic picture.
A painting that no matter how hard I try, I have never had enough patience to step back and admire the whole picture.
Just diligently bending down, picking up tiny pieces every day.
Piece by piece, piece by piece. And it's never enough to see it all.
The moment I realized this, I suddenly understood: I have always lived in a version of reality created by my overly confident mind.
The problem is this:
When you don't know that you don't know,
you will assume that you know.
And thus, everything becomes extremely logical.
But it's a kind of logic that is absurdly convincing.
My perspective – and maybe yours too – is actually just a pile of cognitive legos made up of super random bricks.
A few sayings from the elders when they hadn't grown enough teeth.
A few gloomy MV of some rapper on YouTube
A bunch of beliefs scattered since middle school.
And a series of dramas on Facebook that you forget who the main character is after reading.
Sounds unbelievable, but it's true.
They not only influence the way I see the world.
They are the way I see the world.
The funniest thing is: when I dare to admit that I don’t know a damn thing,
I surprisingly see a little clearer.
Like... humility is the backstage pass that allows you to sneak behind the scenes of life.
Afraid that even a strong breath could mess up the hero's script of someone out there.
And I wish I could pat my chest and say: I have been enlightened. Awakened. Grown up.
Like the words of teacher Giản Tư Trung.
But no. I'm not there yet.
I have just started to get used to the idea: every time a new thought pops up, I will immediately ask it:
"Hey, where did you pop out from?"
And it seems, starting like that... is not so bad.
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***this is a rewritten version of Note 29
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