THE THOUGHT

Some experiences can only be experienced once.

I reflected as The Sixth Sense appeared in my recommended queue again. I've rewatched the film many times and I can now see all the clues scattered through those early scenes like breadcrumbs. While I was completely blind before, my eyes have opened to a different truth.

It all comes down to one fact: we can't unknow what we know. I can't return to that first viewing. When everything I thought I understood about the story collapsed and rebuilt itself in an instant. My brain has been rewired by that knowledge, and no amount of concentration can simulate that original instant of realization.

There are questions we can no longer ask because we already have the answers. The wonder that gets crowded out by understanding. I sat there watching, mourning a version of myself I could never meet again.

THE DIVE

The Weight of Knowing

The Curse of Knowledge is a cognitive bias that occurs when we lose the ability to imagine not knowing what we now know. Once we learn something, our brains literally cannot simulate our former ignorance. We become neurologically unable to access the beginner's mind, even when we consciously try.

This shapes how we communicate and connect. We use jargon and skip "obvious" points, underestimating how much context others need. Our knowledge becomes part of our identity, coloring our perceptions. We may overvalue our expertise, dismissing challenges to it, or undervalue our wisdom, forgetting how hard-won it was.

Expertise is a double-edged sword. The more we know, the harder it becomes to relate to those who don't share our understanding. We have to work against natural intuition, consciously unpacking what we've internalized.

True expertise requires holding contradictory states: complete mastery and beginner's mind. The best teachers, leaders, and innovators preserve access to their former confusion. They toggle between knowing and not-knowing, translating fluency back into first principles.

How do we stay expert enough to be useful, yet naive enough to remain teachable? Is it possible to be an expert and a beginner at once?

THE PRACTICE

The Weight of Understanding

Think about something that once filled you with wonder, before you understood how it worked.

This week, notice what your expertise has cost you. The questions you can no longer ask. The conversations you can't fully join because you see too many layers beneath the surface. Acknowledge what you've traded for understanding—the comfortable ignorance that once left room for imagination.

Every answer closes a door. Every bit of knowledge makes us less capable of seeing the world as a beginner would. We become fluent in languages others don't speak, citizens of territories they can't visit.

What have you sacrificed in the pursuit of knowing? What wonder did you lose when understanding arrived? Reply if you'd like to share what comes up.