Mental Pivot #51: Knowledge Gaps
The lacunae in our heads, how to think like a detective, and the messy problem of reverse logistics.
When I first stepped foot in the Fanny Peabody Mason Music Building to start my Ph.D. program in the Fall of 1994, I was struck by one pronounced and humbling fact: I was an especially clueless dude among some really smart people (I recounted some of these experiences in Issue #10).
There was no shortage of areas where I felt deficient (imposter syndrome!). One particularly stood out to me: my unsophisticated vocabulary.
My professors and peers had all manner of jargon, erudite terminology, and linguistic deep-cuts at their disposal. Although my present-self holds an even greater appreciation for clear and simple communication, my younger-self chafed at my verbal deficiencies.
I’d hear indecipherable words and unfamiliar concepts dropped casually, like semiology, diegesis, liminality, and palimpsest. Unlike today, where we carry internet-connected super-computers in our pockets, I couldn’t quickly Google these terms. Instead, I had to sit there and stew as I tried to follow a conversation while taking mental note of a litany of terms to reference later.
There was one word, in particular, that I’d hear over and over in my first month of graduate school: lacuna (and its odd-sounding plural, lacunae). Oh, how I despised that mysterious word.
After hearing it for the dozenth time, I finally availed myself and looked it up:
Lacuna (noun), plural lacunae
An unfilled space or interval; a gap.
A missing portion in a book or manuscript.
I wanted to dislike it, but I couldn’t. I immediately recognized its relevance: my head was riddled with lacunae. I’ve since adopted the word as a kind of “totem” in my life.
See, lacunae are the way I’ve come to grips with my relationship with knowledge.
Let me illustrate:
Once you come to grips with the fact that there’s more stuff you don’t know than you do know, it’s liberating.
It doesn’t mean you ever stop learning, but it does put your ignorance in context.
There’s that classic bit of advice for public speaking where, to feel comfortable in front of an audience, you pretend that your audience is naked.
Instead of using the naked people trick, I picture individual heads with an imagined constellation of mental lacunae. It’s as if we’re all little “Swiss-cheese heads” (now you know why I’m looking at you funny as we talk).
Something like this:
It’s a reminder to me that we ALL have gaps in our knowledge, expertise, and where we are in our personal journeys (on the flip side, we all have specialized areas of expertise too!).
It’s also a reminder that there’s so much to learn and so much to be shared between us.
Lastly, it’s a reminder to be patient, kind, and curious when interacting with others.
We can’t possibly fill in all the lacunae, but we can fill in those gaps that are important to us and actively share that knowledge with others.
Now onto this week's recommendations…
Thinking Tools:
How to Think Like a Detective: Norwegian detective Ivar Fahsing gives readers a crash course in improved decision-making. A sampling of the many concepts he explores: WYSIATI errors (“What you see is all there is”), the importance of abductive reasoning, The ABC principle (Assume nothing, Believe nothing, Challenge and check everything), exhausting all possibilities (no matter how improbable), systematic process of elimination, the “6-Cs approach”, and more.
The Opposite of Forgetting is Writing: Oz Tamir’s short piece reminds us about the importance of note-taking.
Stop Missing out on Your Own Ideas: Amir Rachum echoes the message of the preceding link while focusing on specific tactics for habitually capturing fleeting thoughts.
Watch Your Ego: Andrew Yeung considers the balance between humility and confidence and offers some practical tips for keeping our egos in check.
You’re Trying to Do Too Much: Instead of being paralyzed by dozens of projects and too many options, Scott Young urges us to pick a path and commit.
Reading Enrichment:
172 Runners Started this Ultramarathon. 21 of Them Never Came Back: The tragic story about the Yellow River Stone Forest 100K in China this past May. The grueling race took place in a high, rugged desert known for heat exhaustion and sun exposure, but an unusual polar vortex swept rapidly over the course, dropping temperatures below freezing and resulting in an unfortunate disaster.
The Decline and Fall of Rome—A Dangerous Idea?: A new book explores how narratives of decline and the rhetoric of renewal have been used historically to justify political action, moral imperative, and the consolidation of power.
The Exhibitionist Economy: When it comes to scapegoating the sins of social media, the spotlight usually focuses on the corporate end of the spectrum, FaceBook, YouTube, Twitter, et al. Ari David Blaff urges us to consider the other participant in the equation: us, the end user. To what extent did we collectively and willingly cede our privacy in the digital age and abet the attention economy?
The Nasty Logistics of Returning Your Too-Small Pants: Amanda Mull sheds light on a big problem for online retail: product returns. The reality, she says, is that most of the stuff we return is not restocked the way we’d expect. It’s a complicated challenge where short-run costs play a huge role and waste is a byproduct of consumer expectations and complex retail logistics—reverse logistics are much harder than forward logistics!
Patrick Stewart on the Teacher Who Spotted His Talent—and Saved Him: A lovely story about the enduring influence of pivotal figures in our formative years.
A Philosophy of Falcons: The story of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II (1194-1250) and the intersection between his hobby, falconry, and his appreciation of the empirical method and his position as an original natural philosopher.
Odds & Ends:
Kathryn Cooper’s photo series chronicling bird migrations in the UK are glorious to behold. Science magazine, Nautilus, also ran an article spotlighting Cooper’s photo series, “Order Flocking Out of Chaos.”
Just the Punctuation is a tool that helps you understand your “hidden literary style” by removing all characters except for punctuation (nice little regex project). As to why this might be an illuminating exercise for anyone wanting to learn more about their writing, the tool’s creator, Clive Thompson, offers up this interesting article, “What I Learned about My Writing by Seeing Only the Punctuation.”
Javatari lets you play over 700 classic Atari 2600 games in your browser. For all you readers who don’t remember the Atari 2600, it was THE PREMIER home video game console back in the late 1970s. It featured a max screen resolution of 160x192 pixels, 128 colors, and a controller with one button. We’ve come a long way video game enthusiasts.
Cross-Promotions:
The Sample: My favorite newsletter discovery tool. Based on your interests and feedback, The Sample sends a new newsletter recommendation to your inbox on a daily or weekly basis.
The Veggie Digest: A weekly newsletter about the latest trends in sustainable food innovation. My daughter, an environmental policy student, writes it and I periodically contribute to it.
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