# dumbness: i don't mind being dumb because i trust the smart people

i struggle with learning. it's a very slow process for me. i can't simply listen to a presentation or to someone explaining something. i zone out, or in case of presentations i fall asleep. it's very hard for me to maintain in-person technical discussions too.

instead, i need to do something, e.g. be solving problems or writing code. if i get stuck during it, then looking up information is much easier: my mind is then very receptive to ideas that will help me finish my task. i'm then able to focus on the relevant sections of someone's explanation. it's a slow process though because building stuff is a slow process.

but i've met people who are always in this receptive state. they can easily just skim a book and fully understand the ideas in it, even quote parts from it. basically they can read a book and then become experts in the book's topic. i mean for real, i'm not sarcastic here. there are very few people like this, but they do exist. it's quite fascinating to experience such people up close.

but it also reminds me how dumb and slow i am. i guess this feeling is exacerbated by the messages how we should be always learning and developing ourselves. such messages come often from successful and smart people for whom learning, i suppose, is much easier than for others. for me it's very hard and i see it as pointless because the stuff just doesn't stick.

so how do i cope with dumbness and feeling inadequate in the world? part of it is stoicism: i don't care or stress about it much because i can't seem to do much about it. but i think there's also a more important component to this: trust.

it's trust that there will be always smart people around and that they will do/build all the right things. i've seen smart people up close as mentioned above: they are cool, not scary. sure, they get things wrong a few times. but that's human. i also get things wrong. no need to get antagonistic about things, that path leads to despair. i think approaching disagreements with trust is more productive.

i'm not saying blind trust is cure for everything. rather, up to a limit, it allows me to stop wondering about motives, or worry too much about all the bad things people could do. it allows me to stay dumb without the uncomfortable feeling that i should become expert in everything just so that i can have a say in things.

i wish there was more trust in the world. to be fair, more transparency and voice in the leaders' decisions would go long way to be more trustful in general. but that's a different can of worms for some other time.

published on 2022-05-08, last modified on 2022-07-09

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