My freshman year, the office chair I absolutely loved to spin around in had become too loose to sit in, for fear of completely breaking the chair altogether. It’s one of those super comfortable, posture supporting, bungee cord office chairs that often hurt to initially pay for, yet always end up being well worth the cost. For over a year, I knew that I simply needed to go to the store and buy two or three screws, return to the dorm, use the screws to tighten the seat to the stand and just fix the chair. I didn’t for the longest time and it was not because I am a girl, it was not because I lacked the desire to, it wasn’t even because of my usual tendency to procrastinate. The problem was most definitely because I didn’t know how to; that I felt I knew too little about tools to simply walk in and find the type and size of screws I needed. I would sit there twirling the screw in my hand, taking notice of the six-sided dent in the top and sigh about the fact that I didn’t even know the name of the tool (I can now proudly tell you I am referring to an Allen wrench or Hex Key) I would need to put this screw back in the chair.

What’s worse is that I eventually told my Dad my inward dilemma and after he told me everything I needed, (as well as the fact that if I asked an employee, they would help me with no problem) I then proceeded to still ignore the problem. In fact, I took the chair home over summer break, left it at home for the fall semester, for Christmas break, and even the following spring semester.

Why is it that I let the fear of not knowing how to, stop me from trying and keep me from learning?

I wouldn’t say this is the same as the, “Don’t let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game,” dilemma, but rather a new, “I know there is so much I don’t know and that freaks me out,” problem and I’m curious if people ever ponder about how much they don’t know. Why should we, when all this does is exemplify how small and seemingly insignificant we are compared to the vast knowledge of everything?

I feel knowledge is like a room with four separate doors. Behind each door is another set of four new doors. So on and so forth until you’re swallowed in a maze of knowledge. My problem is seeing this as both beautiful, knowing man has always had the ability to study intensely further and further into a subject, as well as nearly disheartening, since man only has so much time allotted in a lifetime to study and this leads to my fear of either never opening any of the other first set of doors or opening all of them and never going deep enough into the separate rooms thus resulting in a surface level knowledge of everything rather than the originally admired deep knowledge of one thing.

I must now beg the question, do we realize, or even care, that there is a whole world out there covered with mountain and canyons of knowledge? Will we ever find the energy to look past what is directly in front of us and explore it? Even more so, will watch documentaries, taking classes, and blogging about all of it ever be enough to lead us past the first few sets of doors?

I’m proud to say I opened a new door the other day and that door happened to be the automatic sliding doors of Home Depot. Yes, I walked right in and amongst the screws and tools I needed, I saw more doors. I’m not going to lie, since it’s not my thing, it overwhelmed me. But at least I opened a new door. Later that night, after fixing my chair, I was over at a friend’s house and her mother was telling me about a documentary she recently watched on HBO, which she described as an excellent piece, covering cultures and ideas we don’t typically encounter in our immediate day to day lives. The title of the documentary is “How to Let Go of the World And Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change,” and I am ecstatic to be opening another new door and watching this very soon. The next day, I was asked to be a creator here on this site. I saw this new shiny door as a tool to help me find, explore, build my knowledge, and start a conversation with others about the world around me and how we all see it. It may never be enough, but at least I’ve taken one step through another door.