I had some experience lately while dealing with really smart people. I doesnt mean that I had never experienced this thing before in Germany only difference is this time I was conscious enough to notice this. It occured to me twice within the week.
The place where I work are the research institutions and the scientists work on the state of the art technologies. Lets put it this way they are the masters of what they do.
In a meeting in which I encountered this Scientist, to present him my work and get the feedback , I noticed he said “I dont know ” a lot of times to my questions and yet was very calm and confortable in saying that. I also noticed the same thing with other scientist which I encounterd the other time. But both of them did make an effort to guide me to find the real answers.
This did feel strange to me for a moment, might be because I have been taught where I grew up that “You are suppose to know everything”, and “You should have answer to everything” even at the cost of totally being wrong or with incomplete misleading information.Thats how you show you are smart. It hurts our ego to admit “I dont know”.
I made me realise that jabbering the answer to everything does not make you smart, admiting that you dont know does, because then you seek the truth and help others seek it inturn gaining knowledge for yourself. It also increased my comfortness to admit I dont know.
Even the greatest masters of the subject admit that they don’t know. Why dont you?
” I know that I know nothing ” – Socrates