One of the things I love about having children is that at times I find myself starting to explain something to them, only to realise mid-flow that I am struggling to put a complex concept into words that they can readily understand. Because the sobering truth of the matter is that if you can’t do so easily, then you need to accept that you don’t actually know the subject that well yourself. Ouch.
This week’s ego deflating moment came after I had finished watching a film with my fourteen-year-old daughter. The film had an aspect of time jiggery-pokery to it, and she was saying that it didn’t make sense that someone in the past might know what would happen in the future. The conversation wandered on through some of the possible ways that I thought this might happen, such as parallel universes, time dilation, and gravity lensing, et al. And whilst she appeared to be interested (or was doing a great job of faking it) I was acutely aware that some topics which I thought I understood well, had suddenly become peppered with terms like “thingy”. A sure sign that something wasn’t quite right.
Fortunately, I am the kind of person who is perfectly comfortable with finding that I have gaps in my knowledge. Mostly as (rumour has it) I’m also bright enough to recognise them as opportunities for growth and to backfill them quickly, given the opportunity.
This isn’t an approach that is universally-embraced though, and I’m sure that you can think of times where you may have met someone in a professional context that clearly didn’t know their subject-matter well, but yet wouldn’t simply close their mouth.
What was the last “thingy” moment you had, and what did it prompt you to (re)learn?
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