The Gentle Rebel Podcast Why Is It So Hard to Say “I Don’t Know”?
“How do you tend to respond when you do not know?”
We had this question in our Journal Circle a couple of weeks ago. It’s at the heart of many issues in our world right now.
How do we hold it?
When do we conceal it?
Where do we turn for knowledge?
And what do we do with it when we acquire it?
That’s what we explore in this episode of The Gentle Rebel Podcast.
Our Relationship With Not Knowing
I find this advert baffling. A couple are wandering around the Leeum Museum in South Korea. They didn’t know it was big; they only gave themselves an hour. He thinks a roof tile is a book. Even when his phone corrects him, they skip off giggling without listening to the information.
It reminds me of a billboard from the AI company Turing that says the quiet part out loud:
“We teach AGI to think, reason, and code—so you don’t have to.”
Are we being encouraged to outsource our thinking and reasoning, not to support and deepen our cognitive abilities, but to replace them? Are they saying we don’t have to think or reason anymore? Even if that’s not the intention, it’s certainly the outcome of using many tools like this.
There seems to be a disregard for the sacred delight of human consciousness, thought processes, and creativity. And a subtle quest to eliminate mystery, curiosity, and the learning that comes from not knowing.
Yet not knowing has always been central to human potential. It is the driving force of creativity, innovation, and deeper connection to the worlds within, around, and between us.
Open and Closed Stances
As people reflected in our Journal Circle, a thread emerged: openness vs closedness.
Closed not-knowing: defensive, protective, secretive.
Open not-knowing: curious, relational, exploratory.
Closedness can feel tight. Clenched. Like rushing to paint over the threat of embarrassment or being found out.
Openness can feel spacious. Physically expansive, deeper, and less pressured. Where the uncertainty is met with an invitation into possibility and curiosity rather than grasping, clinging, and defensiveness.
We explore several ways this plays out in everyday life.
Pretending To Know
One response to not knowing is pretending to know.
We’ve probably all done it. Nodding along when everyone else seems to understand. Staying quiet because asking a question feels risky.
Research in 2007 found that children aged 14 months to five years ask an average of 107 questions per hour. By the time they reach late primary school, many stop asking questions altogether.
In the episode, I share an anecdote from research led by Susan Engel, where a ninth grader is stopped mid-question with the instruction: “No questions now, please; it’s time for learning.”
Within institutional settings, our natural curiosity and creativity can be left behind, and if questions are deemed disruptive or inappropriate, we may simply pretend to know and struggle quietly. This is especially true for many more introverted and sensitive people, who are already generally disposed to slot in around others without drawing much attention to themselves.
Child-like Curiosity
A child doesn’t see their lack of knowledge as a reason to be ashamed. It’s underpinned by the electric buzz of connection. Everything is new, mysterious, and waiting to be explored. For an adult moving through and out of a rigid system, not knowing can feel like an exposing story in which their worth as a human is assessed.
Pretending to know can become an adaptive strategy. A way to keep the peace. A way to belong.
There’s also the technological version, prominent in many AI tools people rely on for accurate information. These systems are designed to always produce an answer, even when they are wrong. This reflects the kind of closed pretending that aims to foster a perception of expertise, so those listening believe that the source’s confidence equates to competence.
But pretending doesn’t only come from intentional deception. It can stem from stories we absorb, linking knowledge with worth:
“I must know in order to be useful.”
“I must be useful in order to be accepted.”
Letting go of that story can be liberating.
Saying “I Don’t Know”
“I don’t know” is an option. A surprisingly radical one.
When it is open, it creates space to explore our unknowing. An open “don’t know” admits not knowing with hands turned towards learning and discovery. It might come with an inner spark and the freedom from performance.
A closed “I don’t know” shuts things down. It can signal indifference or defensiveness. Sometimes that boundary is healthy. Sometimes it is armour.
Being “In The Know”
There is also the social currency of being “in the know.” Trends. News. Other people’s business.
Ignorance can feel like bliss. It can also feel like exclusion.
From a closed place, being in the know becomes about control. From an open place, it can become a source of connection. The ability to link ideas, introduce people, and catalyse collaboration.
Knowing What’s Best
Another response to uncertainty is doubling down on certainty.
We are pattern-seeking creatures. We build cognitive maps to navigate a complex world. But when ambiguity feels overwhelming, certainty can feel like solid ground, even if it’s forged, manufactured, and brittle.
Closedness says “this is how it is”, refuses nuance, and punishes curiosity and accountability as disrespect, insolence, and rudeness.
Open wisdom looks different. It sits shoulder to shoulder, acknowledges nuance, and is willing to say, “I don’t know the best thing to do here.”
Admitting one does not know can be a radical act in cultures that equate doubt with weakness and desperately seek a way to explain and understand everything, even without empirical evidence.
Knowing That We Don’t Know
In a 1933 essay lamenting the rise of the Nazi movement in Germany, Bertrand Russell wrote, “The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure, while the intelligent are full of doubt.”
Charles Bukowski said something similar when giving advice to budding writers: “But the problem is that bad writers tend to have the self-confidence, while the good ones tend to have self-doubt.“
These quotes highlight the importance of knowing what we do not know — and recognising the limits of our own perspective. This took us to a detour into the Dunning–Kruger effect, which is the idea that we can speak confidently about subjects precisely because we don’t yet know what we don’t know.
Reading Maps and Navigating Life
“I don’t know, but I am aware of where to look to figure it out.”
In The Return To Serenity Island course, we map elements of life, seeing it as a treasure laden island.
Not knowing is a door to connection, curiosity, creativity, and exploration. But it can also feel disorienting, confusing, and alienating at times.
Maps help disorientation become orientation-in-progress without strict instructions or someone else’s path to follow. They can bring us home to ourselves.
