When Was the Last Time You Genuinely Didn’t Know What Would Happen Next?
You’re sitting in a dark movie theater. The lights go down, and for the first time in ages you haven’t read the spoilers, haven’t googled the ending, don’t even know who dies in the final scene. Your heart beats a little faster. That feeling isn’t just adrenaline. That’s wonder. The same wonder we slowly lose as we grow up and “figure everything out.”
Now picture the opposite: someone confidently declaring in the comments, “It’s obvious,” “That’s exactly how it is,” “I knew this before you were born.” Their face is calm. Pulse steady. But inside — dead silence. No wonder. Just concrete walls of certainty.
That’s what we’re talking about today: the difference between a person who allows themselves not to know, and a person who no longer allows themselves to know anything new.
The moment your brain goes, “Holy crap, this is interesting!”
Back in 2004, neuroscientists in London stuck people in an MRI scanner to see how they handled the unknown. The results were fascinating. When the answer to a question was predictable, brain activity flatlined. But the second someone realized they’d been wrong or discovered a gap in their knowledge, entire networks lit up: the anterior insula (which handles salience) and the ventral striatum (the reward hub). In other words, the brain reacts to the anticipation of learning roughly the same way it reacts to chocolate or a text that says “I like you.”
Put simply: uncertainty mixed with curiosity is a natural drug. Evolution wired this into us so we’d climb trees, explore new territories, and not die of boredom in a cave. Somewhere along the way, though, we learned to fear that drug.
Openness to Experience: the trait you can measure — and even level up
In psychology’s famous “Big Five” personality model, one of the primary traits is Openness to Experience. It is the fuel for a life well-lived. People who score high on this trait demonstrate distinct advantages:
- They change their political and social views more easily when presented with new evidence (Costa & McCrae, confirmed across thousands of participants).
- They are disproportionately likely to become artists, writers, or scientists because they can connect unrelated ideas (Feist, 1998 meta-analysis).
- They handle workplace uncertainty with greater resilience and adapt rather than burning out (proactive coping research).
- They maintain friendships with people from wildly different social circles, reducing tribalism (McCrae, 1996).
People low in openness, on the other hand, often suffer more anxiety precisely because any uncertainty feels like a distinct threat. They are more comfortable when the world is black-and-white and all the answers are already filed away. The cool part? Openness isn’t just “you’re born with it or you’re not.” It naturally tends to drop after age 30 (the "cementing" of personality), but it shoots up again if you actively train it:
- Travel without a fixed plan or GPS.
- Pick up brand-new hobbies after 40 that you are bad at.
- Read books you violently disagree with to understand the logic, not to argue.
- Deliberately seek out people who think completely differently from you.
A little experiment I ran with my students
A few years ago, I asked a group of 40 people to spend one week answering any question — even ones they thought they knew the answer to — with a specific phrase: “I don’t know… but let’s figure it out together.” The goal was to taste uncertainty on purpose.
The results after just seven days were telling:
- 68% argued less on social media because they stopped feeling the need to defend a position.
- 54% started reading articles from “the other side” of the political spectrum.
- 91% reported feeling… lighter.
One guy wrote something that stuck with me: “I realized that when I say ‘I don’t know,’ people don’t think I’m stupid. They relax and start thinking with me. It’s magic.”
Why “I know for sure” quietly kills you
When we close ourselves off to the new, the brain literally stops prioritizing the construction of new neural pathways. You can see it on scans: people who haven’t changed an opinion or habit in years often show reduced flexibility in the neural networks associated with learning. Closed-mindedness is also a direct path to a distorted reality.
Consider Solomon Asch’s famous 1951 experiments. While primarily about conformity, they revealed a terrifying truth about certainty: once we feel the pressure to agree with a group consensus, we will literally ignore the evidence of our own eyes. We stop seeing reality and start seeing only what confirms our safety within the tribe. Your brain filters out the truth to keep you feeling "right."
Five practical ways to get your sense of wonder back (that actually work)
- The Rule of Three Whys. Ask yourself “Why do I think this?” three times in a row. By the third level, you usually hit the bedrock of “Well… actually… I’m not that sure.” That is where the growth happens.
- Read “poisonous” books. Pick a book that makes your skin crawl because of its ideology. Read 50 pages without arguing in your head. Just listen. It trains cognitive empathy.
- One day a week with no final opinions. designate a day where only "working theories" are allowed. No absolutes.
- Take new routes home. Literally. The brain loves spatial novelty even in tiny doses — it triggers the hippocampus and trains openness.
- Ask "stupid" questions out loud. “Why do you think that?”, “What if it’s not true?”, “What if we’re both wrong?” When you lower your shield, others lower theirs.
Last thing
When Albert Einstein was dying, he reportedly reflected on his life not by his achievements, but by his nature: “I have lived a life full of curiosity. I hope wherever I’m going next, there’s still something to explore.”
Maybe the worst punishment isn’t hell or nothingness. It’s when there’s nothing left to wonder about. So the next time you’re about to say “I already know this,” try taking a breath and whispering:
“Or… maybe not.”
And watch the world get just a little bigger. Just enough to feel alive again.