The Small Usefulness of Suspecting You Are a Fool
Acronyms and terms used in this post:
QED: Quod Erat Demonstrandum. A Latin phrase meaning “that which was to be demonstrated.” In plain para language, it means, “there, proved it,” usually said by people who are either right, smug, or both.
Dunning-Kruger effect: A cognitive bias where people with low skill in an area may overestimate their ability because they do not yet have enough skill to notice their own mistakes. It is the mind slipping on a banana peel and then giving a lecture on floor safety.
The first useful sign of intelligence is not that you can quote physics, argue politics, pronounce “epistemology” without biting your tongue, or frighten your cousins by saying “Bayesian” during Sunday lunch. The first useful sign is much smaller, more private, and frankly more embarrassing.
It is this: you have seriously wondered whether you are a fool.
Not in a dramatic cinema way, standing in the rain while background violins file a complaint with the universe. I mean in the ordinary morning way. The fan is making that tired tuk-tuk-tuk sound. The tea is too sweet. The electricity bill is staring at you like a small government officer. Somewhere outside, a man is selling vegetables with the lungs of an opera singer and the pricing strategy of a pirate. And in the middle of all this, you ask yourself, quietly: “What if I am not as clever as I think?”
This question is unpleasant. Good. Most useful questions are.
The dangerous person is not the one who says, “I don’t know.” That person may yet be saved. The dangerous person is the one who knows everything by 8:30 in the morning. He knows why the economy is broken, why young people are lazy, why old people were better, why science is corrupt, why his favorite leader is a misunderstood genius, why doctors are fools, why climate is exaggerated, why every woman, man, neighbor, dog, and international institution has failed to appreciate his rare wisdom.
This man is found everywhere. In buses. In tea stalls. In resident welfare groups. In family WhatsApp groups where punctuation has died and gone to a better place. He speaks with great force because force is cheaper than evidence.
Certainty is a funny thing. It feels like strength from the inside. From the outside it often looks like a plastic chair pretending to be a throne.
Even physics, the grand serious business of measuring reality until reality becomes irritated, does not give us the luxury of perfect certainty. The deeper you go, the more the world says, “Not so fast, my friend.” Particles wobble. Measurements interfere. The universe, examined closely, behaves less like a marble statue and more like a cat under a sofa: present, mysterious, and unwilling to come out just because you called nicely.
So if the universe itself refuses to be pinned down with complete confidence, what business do I have being absolutely certain that my own opinions are gold-plated?
This is where the old draft had rage in it. I understand the rage. Sometimes the mind looks at itself and sees not a palace but a badly maintained municipal building. Peeling paint. One tube light flickering. Files tied with red ribbon. A clerk asleep under a calendar from 2007.
But rage alone is not enough. Rage is a matchstick. Useful for lighting something. Useless for cooking rice.
So let us use a method.
Ask why.
Why do I think I am intelligent?
Because I read.
Fine. A respectable answer. But goats also chew paper, and nobody invites them to speak at conferences.
Why does reading make me feel intelligent?
Because gathering information resembles thinking. From a distance. In poor light. After two cups of tea.
Why do I confuse information with understanding?
Because facts can pile up like laundry. After a point you think you own a wardrobe. Actually you own a chair no one can sit on.
Why does nobody correct me?
Ah. Now we are approaching the drain without a cover.
Maybe people do not correct me because I am right. Possible. Rare, but possible. Maybe they do not correct me because they are kind. Maybe they are tired. Maybe they have rent, school fees, blood pressure, a mother’s prescription, a leaking tap, and no desire to spend Tuesday afternoon improving my character.
Or maybe I have built a small kingdom where disagreement is treated like treason.
This happens more easily than we admit. You collect people who nod. You avoid people who ask for proof. You call critics jealous. You call silence respect. You call confusion depth. Very soon the mind becomes a room full of mirrors, and every mirror says, “What a handsome intellect.”
Meanwhile, outside the room, the neighbors are laughing quietly.
There is another test. Look at your great discoveries.
Have you ever had a brilliant thought and then discovered that some Greek, Indian, Arab, German, French, Chinese, or half-starved mathematician with bad hair had already said it three hundred years ago, and said it better? I have. Many times. You feel like a man who has invented tea in Bengal. Splendid achievement. Slightly late.
This does not mean you are stupid. It means you have joined the human species, which is mostly a long queue of people rediscovering old truths with new confidence.
The problem begins when you never notice the queue.
A person with some sense eventually learns to say, “Ah, I have arrived late. Let me at least remove my shoes and listen.” A fool arrives late, stands on the table, and announces a new civilization.
This is why comfort is suspicious. If your opinions are never bruised, perhaps they are not strong. Perhaps they have never left home.
Real thinking has a street life. It gets jostled. It gets shouted at. It loses a slipper in monsoon water. It comes back damp, irritated, and slightly wiser.
Then comes the detective test. Feluda would approve. Do not ask what story flatters you. Ask what story explains the evidence.
Do you keep making the same mistake in different costumes? Do you confuse quickness with intelligence? Do you feel personally attacked when someone explains something clearly? Do you mistake a strong vocabulary for a strong mind? Do you treat every coincidence as a secret message from the universe addressed specifically to your distinguished self?
The simplest explanation may not be that you are a misunderstood genius.
It may be that your inner judge has been taking bribes.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is cruel because it has a little circus mirror built into it. When you are bad at something, you may also be bad at knowing that you are bad at it. This is not a moral failure. It is a design problem in the human brain, that enthusiastic monkey-jelly inside the skull which gave us poetry, bridges, tax forms, and comment sections.
The beginner sees simplicity because he cannot yet see the hidden machinery. The expert sees the machinery and becomes nervous.
A beginner looks at a harmonium and says, “Press keys, music comes.” A musician sees breath, timing, fingers, listening, years of failure, and the small terror of performing before relatives who will say, “Good, good,” whether you played Tagore or dismantled a bicycle.
A beginner looks at politics and says, “Just remove the bad people.” Someone older says, “Yes, and then who controls the money, police, land records, courts, contracts, television, schools, and the little office where the file goes missing unless properly worshipped?”
A beginner looks at his own mind and says, “I am clever.”
A better mind says, “Compared to what? In which domain? Under what conditions? After how much sleep? With what evidence? And who is checking?”
That last question matters. Who is checking?
Because the mind is not a neutral judge. It is more like a lawyer hired by your ego. It will defend you with touching loyalty and disgraceful methods. It hides evidence. It attacks witnesses. It says, “My client was under stress.” It says, “Everyone does this.” It says, “At least I am better than that fellow.” This last one is the favorite Bengali sofa cushion of self-forgiveness. Soft, familiar, and full of dust.
The cure is not to hate yourself. That is another trap. Self-hatred is not wisdom. It is ego wearing a torn shirt. It still thinks everything is about you.
The cure is smaller and cleaner.
Ask what would prove you wrong.
Ask whether you can explain the other side fairly.
Ask whether your confidence comes from evidence or repetition.
Ask whether you are learning, or merely collecting decorative words like showpieces in a glass cabinet.
Ask whether you want truth, or just victory.
This is especially necessary in our current age, where every phone is a small factory manufacturing certainty. News flashes, reels, slogans, outrage, expert opinions, half-expert opinions, quarter-expert opinions, and the fully fried opinions of men who have not read one book but have watched seven thumbnails. The thumb scrolls. The blood pressure rises. The mind feels informed because it has been poked repeatedly.
But being poked is not the same as being educated.
A mosquito also gives you repeated notifications.
There is a modest dignity in saying, “I don’t know.” It is not weakness. It is a door left open. Through it may come knowledge, correction, or at least a breeze. In Calcutta, a breeze is not a small thing. Sometimes a breeze is civilization.
Of course, one cannot go around doubting everything all day. That way lies paralysis, unpaid bills, and staring at the ceiling fan until it begins to look philosophical. Life requires action. You must choose the fish, pay the rent, answer the message, submit the form, visit the dentist, and pretend the printer is a rational object.
So doubt must be practical. Not a swamp. A handrail.
Use it before certainty hardens. Use it before posting. Use it before lecturing. Use it before calling someone an idiot, because the gods of comedy—no, not gods, let us say the clerks of cosmic irony—have excellent record-keeping. The moment you declare another man a fool, your own foolishness starts dressing for the occasion.
The great trick is to keep one small suspicion alive: “I may be wrong.”
Not always. Not theatrically. Not with folded hands and fake humility.
Just enough.
Enough to check.
Enough to listen.
Enough to avoid becoming that magnificent public nuisance: the man who mistakes his own echo for applause.
So yes, perhaps the old insult had a useful seed inside it. The surest sign that you are not completely foolish is that you occasionally suspect you might be. That suspicion is not poison. It is soap.
Use it daily.
The mind, like a Calcutta balcony, gathers dust faster than you think.