On not knowing

may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old
 
may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young
 
and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile

ee cummings

After that, it seems to be just too much arrogance to claim to know something, and that the act of knowing something excludes the discovering of many other things. Human beings are too quick to think that they have the corner on knowing things, classifying things, understanding how things work. But the fact is, their primary senses (smell, sight, hearing etc.) are inferior to that of many other species. And their interpretive faculty is dependent on the sorting practices of parts of the brain that reject most of the information coming into the frontal lobes (our super-processor). Just like a computer - what goes in is what comes out. 

Perhaps the alertness and nimbleness of little birds is a clue to how human beings can improve the flow of data into the brain. Perhaps, like them, we can be surprised by everything. And perhaps our quality of mental life will improve?