My friend Abdel’s lament, after watching a student “solve” the Rubik’s Cube on his desk just like the YouTube video showed her how: “You need to value your ignorance.”

Ross Gay, The Book of Delights

When I played video games as a young boy, I constantly referred to cheat codes and guides. I wanted to play the game more efficiently. 

Now, I deliberately go out of my way to avoid these items. I don’t want my experience to be influenced by it. I value the joy of discovery, which is impossible without ignorance.

There’s probably something here about the curse of knowledge (“The better you know something, the less you remember about how hard it was to learn…”), or how external perspectives can help you break your Solomon’s Paradox, but that’s not what I want to say. 

In order to discover, you must experience ignorance. If you don’t value your ignorance, then you also won’t value the discovery. Curt Gabrielson writes, “If you tell somebody something, you’ve forever robbed them of the opportunity to discover it for themselves.” (Via Jim O’Shaughnessy).