Jigyasa – The Spirit to Stay Alive

Jigyasa or the desire to know is a very powerful driving force, it keeps us inquisitive, curious, working hard and moving.

But before we are driven by Jigyasa, being aware of what we don’t know, is very important. It’s more important to know what we don’t know, than the desire to know. If we don’t make the initial effort to assess ourselves and know our shortcomings, then how will we have the drive?

Maybe Virat Kohli continues to struggle to regain form, because he is not aware of the ‘specific’ mistake he is making, about the particular thing that he is getting wrong, or maybe just not getting it. Now I just took this lame example as it was top of my mind. But I am sure each of us can find relevant examples in our own life:

• Where did you ‘not score’ in the exam?
• What subject is your Achilles heal?
• Why could you not convert the particular sales deal?
• What ingredient of the meal u forgot or added less of?
• What part of the topic was not covered well in your article?

Donald Rumsfield, the former US secretary of state gave a lot of pain to the Iraqis. But what he gave the world was the Knowns and Unknowns.

• Known Knowns
• Known Unknowns
• Unknown Knowns
• Unknown Unknowns

I value these four entities a lot. They form the genesis of any activity for me. Let’s look at each of them.

Known Knowns

This is the easier one. You know you are good at something. You know the world is round, and so on. Here, keeping ourselves updated becomes a constant endeavour. While the shape of our planet might not be changing any time soon, for stuff like, how many states in India, the new name of the city, etc, it’s best to check before placing a bet!

Known Unknowns

 This category is not so simple. Sometimes, we are fine to remain ignorant about what we don’t know. And realise that we might face embarrassment at times. In some other cases, we are fine with not knowing- like I do not want to know how a nuclear bomb works. Or I am not keen to know what kind of crimes are being committed by a politician. I am happy not knowing it as it’s something that I cannot do much about. ‘Happy to Not Know’ state. 

Unknown Knowns 

Now here, it gets tricky. This is the area which we need to unearth the most. You might be good at a game you never played. You might be able to pick up a language very easily, but you never tried learning it. You thought you would be a bad driver, but you ended up driving very well, and so on. Here, the need to ‘fling’ with various things, activities, topics, etc. is extremely important.

As a child, our parents try and expose us to all kinds of topics and activities. We pick up some, we ignore some and many, and we do not ever get a chance to try. Of course, what all to try, when and what cost is something that we all will have different answers to, but try, you must. Because unless you believe in the 7 births concept, we all have this one life in this form to live and we might as well make the most of it. Nah?

Unknown Unknowns

This one gets difficult. We don’t know what we don’t know. Unlike the unknowns knowns, this is a category that we might realise we “should have” known, but never gave a thought to. Like I know some housewives regret not paying attention to finances, taxes, and legal matters as they always had someone else to rely on.

And in the unfortunate case where they lose the loved one, it becomes a huge task for them to learn it all in a very short time. The same is true for many youngsters, of all gender. They tend to take it all lightly, till they suddenly have a job, need to live on their own and are confused by the gamut of info that is thrust upon them.

Of course, I used these categories to explain the importance of learning and the constant endeavour to seek information. This categorisation existed even before Donald Rumsfield quoted it!!

One thing common is the ‘quest or desire’ to be known. That is a must for an exciting and fulfilling life. Of course, this is no compulsion, as the famous poet Thomas Gray said, “Ignorance is Bliss”.

However, if you believe that you would want to make the most of the opportunity of this one life you have on this beautiful planet, then you want to know more and more, ask questions that have not been asked, and find answers to questions that have not been answered, relearn what you learnt long back, unlearn stuff which you had learnt wrongly, etc.