There is a difference between someone who doesn’t know any better and someone who should know better. If that difference is taken as granted generally it should nonetheless be kept close in mind, as that is the seed of discontent within a people. Within that discontent neither one trusts the other. The don’t-knows fail at everything they attempt. The should-knows have freed themselves from having to make any attempts at all.
I think we all know, given the option, which type we would rather be. From our vantage point, the should-knows have it all. They have intellectual vanity cushioned by the privilege of laziness; they have confirmed potential enlivened by the thrill of disappointment. All consequence-free as far as they’re concerned. Consequences are for the don’t-knows, who lack in equal proportion to what the should-knows have. They have no apparent resolve, no desire to improve, no propulsive force to launch them up and out from an unending torpor. It is like a coin where one side is polished and golden while the other is blackened and defaced. These sides seem fixed as if by force of law. Like any law, those who most benefit from it overpower those constrained by it.
And yet this coin has a third side that is not quite as clean as the one nor as damaged as the other. That side is the person who knows as much as anyone needs to know. That person is little thought-of, assumed to be of no interest, making no special effort to seem interesting, and who has little detectable influence upon events. Well, of course. The know-enough knows most of all his limitations. So when something is not to his liking, he will not simply act on his own imperative, but will pool his resources for the best possible results. Someone who knows enough judges carefully and exactly.
To the know-enough, the should-know has a certain potential. The should-know is good company and has a willingness to please. He does not offend the know-enough when there is nothing to do. But give him a task and the scope of what the should-know should know is very wide indeed. And by virtue of his designation and the amenities it confers, he has neither capacity nor interest in narrowing it.
The don’t-know, by contrast, makes a bad first impression. To the know-enough he is charmless and hopeless. And he fills those voids with a renewable and indiscriminately distributed sense of grievance. Fortunately for them, the know-enough possesses one thing the other two lack: patience. And he lacks something that each have in abundance: desperation for human connection. That the don’t-know is less pleasing to be around can be easily overlooked. He is less a void than an undiscovered island where any number of useful treasures may be hidden.
Just as there are differences between should-knows and don’t-knows, there is a corresponding difference between unmet expectations and no expectations. I think we all can agree here that it is better to be unexpected than over-expected. So much is heaped upon the should-knows in this regard that you’d be heartless not to pity them a little. They’ve faced challenge after challenge and failed each one. Those failures coagulate in the soul and weigh on the bones until they can no longer walk. Those challenges, for whatever reason, were never afforded to their opposites. There is no telling how far people who don’t know better can walk, assuming they can at all.
If you’ve noticed a change of pitch in your interactions that feels like challenges or quests are being put to you or as if you’re being landed upon by some explorer, two things will be made clear. First, you will be confirmed in what you’ve only suspected about the type of person you are. Second, an urgent matter is on the approach, or even then just making its dimensions known, and for whose reversal you are to be counted and assessed.
Ignorance is our daily reality. That it exists is less our concern than its variety. Anyone who knows enough carries the responsibility to discern its variations in order to apply one and contain the other as his needs demand. The don’t-know, that most vestal of ignorants, is in a prized position. There is no guarantee, of course, that every don’t-know will be any better equipped than the should-knows in assisting the know-enough. He at least has that opportunity to prove it, which the should-know squandered long ago. But not knowing better is no excuse for being unprepared. It’s better to be ready than to know that you must be ready. And it is surely better than being haunted by no longer needing to be ready, or knowing that you never really were.