Save Trivia for Game Night

How willing are you to change your mind? Better yet, how willing are you to not know? I watch myself and others in encounters around rightness and wrongness. We sometimes get so hooked on validating a fact, we create tunnel vision. We create a quest to be the one who knows more and has more knowledge in this area of trivia. These aren’t discussions around perspectives, beliefs or principles of life. These, I argue, are about questions we see on Jeopardy. Trivia. “When did this happen? What costs more? Who was the first person to hold this record?” Sure, these are worth looking at from time to time when it’s on behalf of something bigger.

When it’s the assist to something greater. The tee up. The foundation for the heart of the argument that’s creating an impasse in our interaction. But sometimes (a lot of the times)….does it matter? Why does it matter where we know that actor from or who he’s married to? On a day to day basis, we tend to act like it matters above all else and we’re particularly prone to seeking until we find the answer given the world’s knowledge-base is at our fingertips. But so what? What would happen if we never got that answer? What would happen if we challenged our need to know?

Trivia is just that. Trivial. What might happen if we let go of knowing and instead experience what it’s like to not know? Perhaps the quest is about practicing the discernment around when living a question is more valuable than seeking an answer.