Conviction by Doing

“Nowadays, there is no scope for getting away with half-baked knowledge,” Swami complained the other day over coffee. Jigneshbhai and I thought he was talking about his experience at work with clients.

“You mean you need to know your stuff in front of clients? No scope to faff around?” Jigneshbhai asked.

“Well, with clients yes. But even with family,” Swami clarified.

Jigneshbhai and I didn’t quite get what he was referring to.

“As in?” Jigneshbhai asked again.

It was an unfamiliar situation for me today, as Jigneshbhai asked the clarifications and Swami answered the questions. I was certain it won’t last long though and the tide will turn.

“Well, clients go online and cross check everything we advise them about, even if they don’t fully understand the subject. But that’s understandable. They pay us for advice,” Swami began.

“But even my son goes to Google or Wikipedia when I tell him about something I know,” Swami sulked in dismay.

Jigneshbhai and I glared at each other on hearing that.

“Yes, that is true, nowadays,” Jigneshbhai said, and I agreed.

Most people go online when they want to learn about something or check something. Clients cross check what we tell them.

But even family doesn’t take things at face value often, especially the children. Google is the starting and often the endpoint, followed by Wikipedia, YouTube and the like if they want a bit of a further deep dive.

“These sources make it easy to get quick information and form an opinion,” Jigneshbhai started. “It is often shallow knowledge, but sufficient for the moment,” he further added.

“That’s the problem. And they take that as true. And the shallow knowledge found out there may be different from what I say. And that creates a problem,” Swami continued complaining.

Jigneshbhai sipped his coffee and munched on his muffin for a while. Swami and I realised something was cooking.

“But that’s fine. You shouldn’t worry too much about it,” Jigneshbhai remarked with nonchalance.

“Why?” Swami asked.

“Well, one can find the information online. But one can’t find the conviction that true knowledge needs,” he remarked.

“Hmm..” Swami nodded, intuitively agreeing with what Jigneshbhai said. Even I felt that there was a point he had. But Swami wasn’t entirely convinced.  

“So where does the conviction come from?” Swami enquired.

Jigneshbhai sunk his teeth into another bite of the muffin.

“Well, it comes from having done it, and not just read it,” he replied. “If I have done something and experienced it, I know, for a fact, that it is true,” he said.

Swami and I looked at each other and pondered over it. Realising that we weren’t fully onboard, Jigneshbhai continued.

“Like this muffin,” he said, pointing at the muffin in his hand. “We know it tastes good. No Google or Wikipedia will change that conviction of true knowledge from experience,” he said, with a loud laugh that reverberated in the cafe.

As if to convince himself again, Swami took a bite from the muffin and instantly signalled his agreement.

“Yup, that’s right, we have experienced the goodness of this muffin,” Swami said, this time with conviction. The most internalized knowledge is the one learnt by doing and experiencing. It applies to the most mundane to the most abstract knowledge, I reckoned.

Swami seemed to have got some inroads from this experience.

He then added with a smile coming back to his original problem. “Maybe I should tell my son to do things he wants to know himself. My clients may not agree, but my son should.”

Jigneshbhai nodded. That sounded right to me as well.

“Next time when he wants to know how something works, don’t tell him the answer,” Jigneshbhai said.

“He will anyway google it and find some answers for himself. But if you tell him to try working on it for a few days, he will get the conviction after experiencing it,” Jigneshbhai said with a twinkle in his eyes.

Swami nodded his head. His thoughts took him to where he can use it next. He wasn’t fully convinced yet though.

“Hmm. Let me try,” he announced.

Jigneshbhai pushed the case for Swami to try further.

“Don’t teach him the theory. Tell him to try actually doing it, albeit imperfectly, for a few days,” he added.

“Like what?” Swami asked.

“Hmm, anything. Maybe how to make tea or some dish? Or something about a game or some exercise? Or whether a book or a writer is good to read? Anything,” Jigneshbhai replied.

“I will tell him to make the dish himself or try the exercise for a few days. Or read a sample of the book. Got it,” Swami said in a tone of excitement. This time Swami seemed onboard.

He then added further conviction to it.

“In this way, the theory may be mine or someone else’s that he reads on google or Wikipedia, but the experiences and conviction built into the knowledge will be his,” Swami declared, fully convinced and with full conviction this time.

“Yup. The mind also remembers the knowledge gained out of experiences longer because of the conviction,” Jigneshbhai said with rare, redoubled enthusiasm.

And then, holding the muffin Jigneshbhai went back to the example he had started with. “Like the conviction we have for the taste of this chocolate muffin, which we taste every time we meet here,” he said and laughed out aloud again.

At that time, I saw the wealthy old man from the adjoining table also join us in the joie de vivre. As usual, he had been listening to our conversation for a while.  

“Learning by doing is the best way to build conviction for the knowledge,” he reconfirmed, looking at me and Swami.

“But don’t take my word for it. Try it for yourself,” he advised.

And then he took a piece of another unfamiliar looking muffin in his hand, and looking at Jigneshbhai, he said, “You should try the butterscotch muffin the next time. It is equally good.”

“I have the conviction of experience,” he added, biting into it.

***