What Do You Really Know?

Have you ever had the experience of learning something new that completely changes your mind about everything? That would be a form of a Black Swan event. A Black Swan event is a concept popularized by statistician and former Wall Street trader Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his 2007 book The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable. It refers to a rare, unpredictable event that has massive, widespread consequences. The term “Black Swan” comes from the Western belief, held for centuries, that all swans were white—until black swans were discovered in Australia, overturning a previously unchallenged assumption.

It’s the “previously unchallenged assumption.” that I want to get at. A so called Black Swan event that disrupts a relationship completely. Imagine discovering that your husband, who works part of the year in another country, found himself falling in love with a local woman, whom he secretly married and started a family with. Meanwhile, here you are with your two young kids in your home country with your world shattered. That would be a black swan event for a couple, don’t you agree? (This actually happened to my sister!)

Black Swan events happen personally too. We recently interviewed a person, who woke up one day a few years ago, a middle aged man, to discover that the gender dysphoria they experienced as a young person, manifested in their choice to transition to the woman they knew themselves to be. After hormones and surgeries, they now practice as a relationship coach and professional dominatrix. As far as his family and extended family is concerned, that was a black swan event for them.

I like to say that “knowing makes no difference.” I say this because when it comes to oneself and ones partner, it’s likely the case that what you know is probably something you made up, and something that has no basis in reality at all. In a sense, when you are able to see what’s so in reality, then it’s as if there was a black swan event that has disabused you of your base belief structure completely. It seems a little arrogant of me to state categorically that you don’t really know what you think you know, but, I say that with a certain confidence that most of what you think you know and most of what you know you don’t know, is dwarfed by what you don’t know that you don’t know. In fact, because it’s hidden, you mostly have no idea about all that is hidden from your view.

What is funny about this is that not only are we ignorant about those things, but, we tend to be righteous about stuff we have no idea about. Here is an example. I had a friend who I knew to be gay, Only, he was sure that his gayness was not obvious to everyone, and that if he came out t me, his boss, he would need to do so in a public place so I would not erupt. It’s true that the climate in the 1990’s was not as open to gender issues as it is now, but even so, when he told me, I thanked him and encouraged him and acknowledged him for being courageous in sharing himself authentically with me. He was stunned that I was not reactive. In his mind, our business was just like all businesses at the time, and his black swan event was realizing that his gender was not at issue for me or the rest of his colleagues. He relaxed visibly.

Even in relationship, most of us are inauthentic with our partners. We keep secrets from them. We have a sense of morality about things. We don’t share because we ask ourselves, “What will they think about me if I tell them that?” Here is the thing, you don’t know, and even if you did, knowing makes no difference. Whatever it is, its best to be authentic and to look where you are blinded to see what constraints there are to allowing you to truly be authentic. The main thing to remember is that whatever you share about how you think or feel, all of that is predicated on the past. You have 100% of your life left, and you get to create it newly day-by-day. Do not be stuck in what you know. Remember, knowing makes no difference!