For some of you reading this, the school year is starting again, which means you are back in the classroom, either as a student or instructor. For others, there’s nothing particularly educationally significant about this season. Still, I feel compelled to talk a little about part of learning that we don’t often hear about: vulnerability.
When we commit to learning something, we admit to ourselves and to anyone who is paying attention that we are ignorant. While confessing our lack of knowledge is the first step towards addressing the problem, being candid about our shortcomings can be difficult, both due to our ego making it difficult to appear less than perfect to the outside world, and because of a not-always-misplaced fear that to own up to our imperfections will lead to others exploiting them.
It’s like when they say that there’s no such thing as a stupid question, then roll their eyes when you ask a question.
I shared a fun (even at the time) example of how I tiptoed my way around saying “I don’t know” a while back, which if nothing else demonstrates that admitting our lack of knowledge can inspire insecurity—even when we are supposed to be working in security.
My thoughts today are inspired by my current re-reading of Moby Dick. As I’ve recently put myself in a position of having to learn a great deal outside my comfort zone, one passage grabbed my soul. In the very first chapter, as Ishmael is musing about why he chooses to “go to sea” as a simple sailor, he remarks that “they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one’s sense of honor….” Here, Melville perfectly captures the feeling that any of us who later in life have gone back to school, or had to learn a new job, have had. We’re admitting that we don’t know what to do, so others order us around.
But then the next sentences just smack me personally on the nose: “And more than all, if just previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been lording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand in awe of you. The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from a schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it. But even this wears off in time.”
I wouldn’t say it’s my habit to lord it over anyone as an instructor, whether it’s in a classroom or on the mats, but wow Melville nails how it feels to go from reigning as the intellectual superior in the room to fumbling your way across new ground. Ishmael rationalizes that the presumably lower station of sailor isn’t so bad, as the occasional “thumps” aren’t such a big deal, because everyone is bossed by someone—the “universal thump” as Melville puts it, “is passed round, and all hands should rub each other’s shoulder blades, and be content.”
Which is strangely relevant to the work of conflict resolution, particularly workplace conflict resolution. I can split the issues that people bring to me as ombuds into three big categories: transactional problems (I keep getting parking tickets even though I have paid for parking), existential issues (I am afraid that I am going to be fired), and self-actualization concerns (someone is preventing me from being the person that I want to, but isn’t directly threatening my livelihood). I would put the thumping into the last category. Ishmael is telling us, I think, to take slights to our self-importance with a grain of salt. If the captain thumps you, you can take some solace in knowing that someone else is thumping them, and you commiserate with your fellows, who are being similarly thumped. It might even help you bond.
The shoulder rubs might not be entirely workplace appropriate in 2025, but being content never goes out of style.
Ishmael being “thumped” comes back to him putting himself in a position to learn. While he has gone to sea before, he’s never been on a whaling ship, so he is fine with being at the bottom of the food chain because he can satisfy both his curiosity and need for adventure. Doing this, in his words, causes “the great flood-gates of the wonder-world” to swing open, which is a wonderfully vivid way of saying, “I am ready to learn.”
While getting physically thumped isn’t necessarily part of every curriculum, that willingness to absorb shocks to our sense of self is almost always necessary. When we are really learning, we open ourselves up to having our entire worldview flipped around. This disorientation can be pleasantly stimulating (think someone riding a rollercoaster) or violently disconcerting (think of an unrestrained passenger in a rollover collision). Whether we are strapped in or not, being discombobulated like that demands a degree of vulnerability.
It might be easier to open ourselves up to that vulnerability when we are young; maybe we have nothing to lose. Though one could also argue that a more seasoned person, with accomplishments to fall back on, is better equipped to handle the thumps that a new situation brings, metaphorical or not. Whichever way you’re inclined to lean, it’s important to remember just how difficult it is to be vulnerable at any age, and to give a little grace.
None of us was born knowing what we now know, and though we might have but an echo of a memory of how much it hurt to acquire our knowledge, we should never forget. Who knows, being patient with someone who is learning alongside us—or from us—we might just learn something new ourselves. After all, as they say, a sage can learn from a fool, but a fool can never learn from a sage.
So until next time, expect the unexpected, stay informed, and I’ll stay informal.
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