Hello there!
Any translation aficionado would agree that the discovery of translation-related books, articles, and accompanying paraphernalia is always a reason for festivities. Such was the case when I first spotted, on the crowded shelves of my local bookshop, the cutest little book entitled "Lost in Translation: An Illustrated Compendium of Untranslatable Words from Around the World" by the talented Ella Frances Sanders. Faithful to its title, this gem of a book is packed with wonderful drawings of untranslatable words in various languages, among which is tsundoku, the Japanese term for piling up books with no actual intent of reading them soon… or ever, for that matter, given the time constraints that define our lives.
Stumbling upon tsundoku, my mind flashed back to a famous writer’s interview from decades ago, where the author said:"Of course, I haven't read all the books in my home library. But I look at them, I talk to them, I smell them. I live with them." Despite my inability to recall neither the author nor the magazine I read this in, there is a sense in me that, ever since reading this quote, I started "a novel way of living with my books". From that moment on, my books were not merely lifeless capsules of yet undiscovered knowledge but, instead, objects with a “soul” and a purpose to accompany me on my life’s journey until the right moment for reading them came along, if ever. This mental change fended off my sense of insecurity, or guilt, whenever I glanced at an unread book on my bookshelves; it also made me more conscious of my finite understanding of the world since - There they were! Right in front of me! - Wrapped in colorful, plain, luxury or dusty covers, the perpetual reminders of my elusive knowledge.
This concept of fleeting knowledge is also evoked in The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, a brilliant classic book in which statistician and mathematics philosopher, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, explores the concept of improbable and unexpected events, being in charge of our lives in every domain, be it financial, social, or personal, albeit our vigilance to predict or avoid them. To illustrate the value of yet undiscovered knowledge in unread books, Taleb quotes the acclaimed scholar and polymath, Umberto Eco (1932-2016), whose own library contained approximately thirty thousand titles that he could not have possibly finished reading during his lifetime. Eco regarded one’s accumulation of (unread) books as a research tool and as a vehicle for validating our narcissistic personalities:
The library should contain as much of what you do not know as your financial means, mortgage rates, and the currently tight real-estate market allows you to put there. You will accumulate more knowledge and more books as you grow older, and the growing number of unread books on the shelves will look at you menacingly. Indeed, the more you know, the larger the rows of unread books. Let us call this collection of unread books an antilibrary.
In its essence, the antilibrary brings our unattained knowledge sharply into focus for us. This realization, combined with the old “Half knowledge is worse than ignorance” adage, feels quite unnerving because it suggests that our galaxy of unread books informs our perception of the world around us more than the already-read ones do. It becomes evident, therefore, that we should tread very carefully on subjects we are not fully aware of or notions that we have not fully understood, proceeding with a humble disposition in our interlocution with our fellow human beings when supporting one opinion or the other.
From https://fs.blog/circle-of-competence/
Enter intellectual humility.
In this day and age of social and political upheavals, in order to cut doxastic beliefs in their tracks and avoid escalated rhetorical debates in all walks of life, it is important to avoid engaging in hyperbolic discussions and maintaining headstrong arguments.
The required Intellectual Humility, which is basically the recognition “that one’s beliefs and opinions might be incorrect”1 has fairly recently gained center stage in the public and academic discourse and is accompanied by the production of books and even the establishment of university courses.
In his latest book, How the World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We're Going, Vaclav Smil, a high-caliber intellectual, scholar, and prolific writer of our times, attempts a realistic account of how the actual world is and works feigning idealistic notions, denouncing forecasts, and making a plea for agnosticism and humility in order for people to manage to grasp how the world “works” without (romantic and utopian) blinders.
It seems, therefore, that it takes polymaths, people with well-rounded knowledge, to actually grasp the possibility of our making mistakes in our explanations and interpretations of what we perceive as true, and to advocate for modesty and spiritual meekness. These interdisciplinarians seem well equipped to conceive the limitations of our notions before the unfathomable realities of our existence and our world.
So let us be inspired by Socrates, the wise teacher and philosopher of ancient Athens, who believed he knew nothing. Through tsundoku, let us cherish our antilibraries and humble ourselves in the face of the ‘profound and the mysterious’ extended around us, practicing modesty in our public discourse and private interaction with others.
Although it is very human to hold the knowledge that we acquire as a talisman against anyone who dares to challenge our opinions and, by extension, ourselves, it is paramount that we realize that life and knowledge are not linear and that we accept the potential inexhaustibility of explanations and views of the world, either cosmic or plain practical and earthly; only then can we approach knowledge with a humble disposition and proceed carefully towards our understanding of the whole.
By practicing humility and respect towards their fellow humans, the greatest minds of our species have already indicated the way to eternal wisdom. It is imperative that we follow suit.
Leary, M.R. (2018). The Psychology of Intellectual Humility.