An Observation on What Understanding Now Asks of Me
By Roshan Jayasinghe
In my last observation, What We Know But Have Not Yet Become, I looked at the distance between what we already understand and what actually enters the way we live. This observation continues from there, with the question that stayed with me afterward: once I recognize something more clearly than I did before, what does that understanding now ask of me? I have begun to see that knowing something is more than having the information in front of me. Once I understand what it means, what caused it, and what consequence follows from it, I can no longer treat it as though I never knew.
In my work as a vehicle care specialist, I often have to separate what appears to be the problem from what is actually causing it. An operator once called me because vehicles were leaving his wash with spots on the glass, and his first thought was that the chemical had failed. I understood why he thought that, because the result was visible on the vehicle and the product was the easiest thing to suspect. But before changing anything, I checked what was being applied to the vehicle and the water being used with it. Those checks showed that the product was doing what it was supposed to do and that the problem was in the water quality. Once the checks showed that the chemical was not the cause, changing it would have solved nothing, and it was my responsibility to show him that the real correction had to be made where the problem actually was. Situations like this have stayed with me because they remind me that what first appears to be the answer may not remain the answer once I examine what is actually happening.
The same applies when I hear something from another person. I have become more careful about immediately accepting or rejecting what I hear. A different view may be wrong, partly right, or may contain something I have not considered. It may come from experience I do not have, or it may come from emotion, self-interest, incomplete information or misunderstanding. My responsibility is not to agree because somebody speaks with confidence, and it is not to defend my existing position because their view challenges mine. I have to look at what is actually being presented.
This is where what I have come to call the Human Continuum has become useful to me. It is a discipline I have been developing for my own understanding rather than a rule for anyone else. Whatever I see, hear or receive needs to be examined for its intent, its factual correctness, whether it can be verified, whether the reasoning behind it holds, and whether it remains clear when I return to it. If another person’s view brings a missing detail that survives that examination, I want to allow it to strengthen or correct what I already understand. If it does not hold, I do not need to carry it. If stronger information appears later, what I understood before must remain open to adjustment. What I am trying to preserve is not the conclusion itself, but the process that allows the conclusion to be checked again. To me, that is more useful than holding on to an idea only because it once made sense to me.
What We Know But Have Not Yet Become
By Roshan Jayasinghe. An Observation on Looking Inward and Carrying Humanity Forward. My work in the car wash industry takes me into express tunnels, the conveyor areas where vehicles move through a sequence of chemical applications, washing, protection and rinsing…
Read MoreEarlier in life, changing my position could feel like a small defeat. I do not see it that way now. If I am shown something I did not see before and it stands up to examination, I have gained something, whoever it came from. I have also come to recognize that my own experience is not automatically correct because I lived it. I can remember an event accurately and still misunderstand why it happened. I can remember how I felt and still be wrong about another person’s intent. I have carried conclusions for years because they made sense at the time, only to see them differently when another detail appeared. That has happened enough in my life for me to know that certainty also deserves examination.
Once something has been examined carefully enough that I can no longer honestly say I did not know, it is no longer only information. It has become part of what I understand. That does not give me a final truth, but it does mean I cannot continue exactly as before without making a choice about it. A misunderstanding I have recognized is one I can correct. An unfairness I have seen is one I can answer differently. A belief that no longer survives examination is one I can set down. None of that feels to me like punishment or blame. It feels more like the point where understanding, having been tested long enough, begins to reach into the way I conduct myself.
I have seen the same thing on a motorcycle. During one of the annual off-road rides in the mountains of Southern California, I was riding with a large group that included many experienced and expert riders. At one point we came to a downhill section of trail that had been badly affected by storms a few weeks earlier. For the stronger riders, it may not have looked especially difficult, but for an average rider like me and my friend, it was something we needed to look at carefully before committing to it. My friend was slightly ahead of me and stopped near the top of the descent. Instead of riding straight in, he pointed down the trail and suggested that we first check the terrain. We got off the bikes and walked part of the section before proceeding. From the top, the safest line had not been obvious, but once we looked closely we could see where the storm damage had changed the trail and where we needed to place the bikes going down. Once we had seen it, the way we would have ridden in from the top was no longer an option, and going down on confidence alone would have been carelessness. That moment stayed with me because experience had taught us not to confuse having ridden similar terrain before with knowing what was actually in front of us that day.
That is also part of why I write these observations. Putting a thought into words lets me see whether it makes sense outside my own head. Sometimes I discover that I am repeating an old conclusion in another form, or defending what I want to believe rather than what the experience is showing me. If something I write continues to hold years from now, I want that to be because repeated examination has strengthened it, not because I protected it from being questioned.
When I look at it this way, I also wonder how often each of us has already seen enough to know that an earlier assumption no longer holds, yet continues from habit, pride, convenience or familiarity. I do not ask that as an accusation. I ask it because I have had to recognize it in myself.
So the question that began this observation has, for me, a fairly plain answer. Knowing becomes responsibility when the examination has gone far enough that I cannot honestly return to not knowing. From there, the question is no longer only what I have understood, but what I am going to do differently because I understand it. What that process is gradually making of me is something I cannot yet say, and that is where the next observation will have to begin.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
This observation continues from the previous article, What We Know But Have Not Yet Become.
