Years ago, I dated an Icelandic woman who—among many other accolades—was an enthusiastic linguist.
She spoke a handful of languages, and was always endeavoring to further her grasp of them. Which in the context of our relationship often meant her asking me about English words and meanings.
She already spoke English incredibly well, and when she asked about this subject she went beyond simple questions, tugging at the threads of a term or concept until she’d unspooled every last detail about it.
That meant this process was generally fairly effortful for me, but also interesting and growth-inducing, because rather than being able to hand her a simple, reflexive explanation, I’d have to take a beat and ask myself what the best definition for a given word was, what other meanings it had, how it was used, the implications of it, what it meant literally versus figuratively or poetically, and so on.
I tend to think of this approach to learning that she so skillfully displayed as “being generous with one’s ignorance,” as she intentionally, step-by-step, moved each and every conversation in a richer, more compelling direction, and she did so in a way that was humble, interested, and purposeful, rather than asking a pitter-patter of questions meant to fill conversational space or to seem polite.
I try to wield my own ignorance the same way whenever possible, as I find doing so is one of the better ways to learn from someone who knows a great deal about something, while also making these sorts of conversations more interesting and engaging for them.
In some cases (in a mirror image of my own experience explaining pro writer-grade facets of the English language to a curious and engaged non-native speaker) I’ve had people I’ve questioned about what they do or know or are passionate about thank me for my questions because those questions helped them remember why they love what they do, or allowed them to see fresh facets of something about which they know a great deal, but which they might not have thought to explore from that angle, otherwise.
As we become more masterful and expert, we can unintentionally erect barriers between ourselves and whatever it is we’re learning: our growing, complex understanding blurring our perception of simpler, more attainable ways of looking at the same.
Having the opportunity to explain an internally well-tread topic to an interested and engaged (if more subject matter-ignorant) outside party can catalyze the purposeful rethinking and reframing of things, because in order to understand what will make sense to that other person we have to empathize with their perspective, seeing a familiar subject through the eyes of someone who is viewing it afresh.
I learned a lot about the English language during those conversations, even though much of what I was learning was based on things I already knew—new connections and realizations were being pulled out of me in a new order, arranged in a new-to-me way that I hoped would be useful to her, but which was also valuable to me for different reasons.
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