Your Education Lied to You: Learning to Unlearn in the Age of Uncertainty

Have you ever labeled yourself a complete failure after missing one workout? Or spiraling into self-hatred after breaking your diet with a single cookie? Maybe you've unfollowed someone on social media because they posted something that didn't perfectly align with your worldview.

We're all guilty of it. The modern mind craves certainty. You see it everywhere – in the way people frantically sort ideas, people, and lifestyles into neat categories of "good" or "bad," "right" or "wrong," "productive" or "waste of time" activities, "successful" or "unsuccessful" people.

Take, for instance, what happened to the teachings of stoicism. Have you ever noticed how "alpha/sigma male" influencers quote Marcus Aurelius's "The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way" as an excuse to glorify grinding yourself to dust? The same Marcus Aurelius wrote about showing kindness to difficult people, accepting our human limitations, and treating ourselves with gentleness when we fail.

They've missed the point entirely. What started as profound teachings about resilience and self-reflection have been reduced by Internet culture to: "no pain, no gain," "rise and grind," and "weakness is a choice."

But reality isn't binary. It never was. And you know that.

The Root of Binary Thinking

Your brain, specifically your limbic system, evolved to make quick judgments: "Is this dangerous?" "Is this food?" "Is this mate material? "This binary thinking served our ancestors well, but we're no longer running from predators or foraging for berries.

Yet, our education system still reinforces this primitive pattern. Get the correct answer and receive praise. Get it wrong, face punishment. There is no room for "maybe" or "it depends." There is no space for exploration or uncertainty.

I hated school because of this. I never understood why History was taught through textbooks, where we had to memorize and regurgitate facts like machines. What kind of learning is that? It felt like pure indoctrination. The point of teaching history should be learning to access raw material, plot a story, interpret multiple sources, and synthesize everything into a coherent narrative. This is a slow process, and most people would say it's idealistic, but it's not a waste of people's time. It's challenging to remember scattered facts. Knowledge alone is not helpful. You need something more – you need understanding. You need to learn how to get and apply the proper knowledge and connect the dots.

As Sir Ken Robinson said, "If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original." This observation has never been more relevant than today. We're entering a digital renaissance in which AI will increasingly handle specialized, routine tasks—precisely the work our education system is designed to prepare people for. Factory-model education, emphasizing standardization and correct answers, is creating specialists in a world that increasingly demands creativity and comfort with ambiguity.

My PhD journey forced me to unlearn decades of binary thinking. Education trained me to find 'correct' answers and sort knowledge into neat categories of right and wrong for twenty years. Then, everything changed. Suddenly, I had to create my field of research. There were no more textbook answers, no clear paths.

This unlearning was – and still is – a struggle, especially in academia, where dogmatic thinking persists despite our claims of intellectual flexibility.

Our education system failed us. Instead of teaching students what to think, we should teach them how to think: mental models, reasoning frameworks, metacognition, mathematical logic, and the tools to build philosophical frameworks. The goal shouldn't be to memorize existing knowledge but to master the process of creating new understanding.

Yet here we are, still treating education like a multiple-choice test when reality rarely offers clean answers.

This learning style results in a generation of minds that can't sit with ambiguity. This generation of people can't embrace the space between extremes. Can't grow. The result is not only a lack of comprehensive vision but also an aversion and an inclination to extreme anxiety during moments of uncertainty.

The Cost

This binary thinking sabotages us. Take dieting, for instance. Someone starts a strict diet, slips up with one "forbidden" food, and spirals into binge eating – all because they can't handle the grey area between perfect adherence and total failure.

Or look at how people engage with politics online. Complex social issues are reduced to simplistic ideological battles as if we were still in the 20th century. This black-and-white thinking fails to solve problems; it destroys our ability to connect with others and find pragmatic solutions.

The Way Forward

The antidote isn't more certainty. It's learning to embrace uncertainty. As Alan Watts observed, life is a dance of uncertainty – a flowing, changing, transforming thing that cannot be pinned down or fully understood. That's precisely its beauty.

What we need isn't more answers – it's a greater capacity to live with questions. To sit comfortably in the space of "I don't know." When you find yourself rushing to judgment, pause. Feel the anxiety of uncertainty and smile at it. How can a thought hurt you? It can't unless you allow it.

Think about this paradox: We're skeptical of anyone who claims to have all the answers, yet we torture ourselves trying to be that person. Why do we attempt this self-deception? It doesn't make sense. You can achieve a calm, serene mind by knowing and acknowledging how little you truly know. And paradoxically, in that acknowledgment, we find our freedom and serenity.

We have already entered an era in which creativity and innovation have become our most valuable assets. The jobs of tomorrow won't require people who can memorize facts—we have our digital archives for that. Instead, they'll need people who can navigate uncertainty, think in systems and patterns, and embrace the messy creation process.

So, let go of your desperate search for certainty. Float in the questions. Dance with the mysteries. After all, isn't it much more interesting to explore than to conclude? To journey than to arrive?

The beauty of life lies in its complexity. In the infinite shades between black and white. In the questions that have no clear answers.

Your potential lies in the same space.

Learn to live there.

Giulia