When Saying "I Know" Isn't Enough

Things do not always have to be complicated, but cultural values can be confusing. I had a really great relationship with Andrew, my first friend in New York. The relationship worked well because it was a mix of lectures, concepts, ideas, and perspectives on cultural evolution. I came from a conservative Ghanaian background and was contemplating my new immigrant experience. The world was at my door, and I was contemplating whether I was going to allow the world to come through me, or whether I would go through the world and experience it for myself. Andrew was liberal, carefree, and happy-go-lucky. He easily slipped the “f-word” between thought, comment, and sleep as if they were punctuation. He was funny, or maybe I just liked to laugh a lot.

Andrew and I were great friends because we learned a lot from each other. Since I was “doing as the Romans do,” Andrew was also my part-time guide through American culture. We tried to make sense of homelessness—the system that tries to fix the problem is responsible for creating it in the first place. We blamed God a few times, condemned human greed often, and praised philanthropists more, though we were often broke. I always found it fascinating that the system gave people the chance to breathe but made it extremely difficult for the breathing to continue.

Andrew and I were still cool until he started annoying me unintentionally. He always said, “I know” when I was passionately discussing an issue he didn’t know anything about. When I complained about the cold, Andrew said, “I know,” but he wore T-shirts while I piled on layers of jackets. When I explained that he had to take time to talk for me to hear and understand, he said, “I know.” But he still talked as though he had hot coals in his mouth. When I explained that, “Just as parents take care of their children when they are growing their teeth, children must take care of their parents when they are losing their teeth,” he would say, “I know,” but still criticize me for sending money home to mum and daddy. When I asked him to take his time to enjoy food and “listen” to the quality of his food because millions of people around the world didn’t have that much to eat, he would say, ‘I know,” but ate without taking a moment to breathe or settle. Like his “f-words,” his “I knows” were sporadic, intentional, and unconventional.

As days passed to weeks and then months and years, I found myself beginning to say “I know” even when I didn’t. The cultural pressure hit me unawares. I agree: confidence is important and knowledge is crucial. But a high demand for those values shouldn’t let us settle for a supply of timidity and cowardice bundled beneath a camouflage of insecurity and ignorance.

Not knowing, we continue to say we know. It is this attitude of “I know” that has sent us to war when we can barely explain why we are at war. “I know” alone has dropped bombs on children, maimed women, torn families apart, and broken homes into pieces. We say “I know,” and yet we spend more than 50 liters of water a day flushing toilets when more than 1.8 billion people who have access to a water source within one kilometer consume around 20 liters per day. Global priorities on spending in 1998 reflected that alcohol and narcotics had a budget of $505 billion, when basic education and reproductive health for all women was going to cost only $15 billion. The Middle East has not tasted the relief of peace in years. Darfur has turned around 360 degrees in genocide, and we are not petrified. HIV will be with us for a generation. And generations will swing on oscillations of vibrations until they are turned into degeneration. Yet we say I know. Do we really know things in depth? Have we really thought through the things we approve? Because our “I knows” and “don’t knows” do not only determine the quality of our lives but rob others of their happiness.