Gurdjieff used to say to his disciples, "The first thing for the disciple is to know what his main characteristic is." Y

If your main characteristic is knowledgeability,
then look around without carrying your burden of knowledge, and then you are stumbling continuously into new surprises and life again becomes worth living, worth rejoicing. Life again becomes a mystery to be loved and lived. It is not a problem to be solved, it is a mystery to be lived.

"Brothers," said the colored preacher, "the subject of my sermon today is 'liars'. How many in this congregation have read the sixty-ninth chapter of Matthew?"
Nearly every hand went up.
"You are the very people I want to preach to," the reverend said. "There is no such chapter!"

But nobody wants to accept that he does not know. Sixty-ninth chapter of Matthew.... Everybody wants to pretend. And I will not say that they were doing it very consciously, deliberately. Maybe they were thinking that they had read it, maybe they were believing that they had read it, and seeing so many hands going up they must become convinced that yes, there is such a chapter.

In the old days down South, a minister had a Negro named Ezra in his household. Ezra was smart and ambitious, but he could not read or write.
One Sunday the minister saw Ezra in the church, scribbling away industriously through the sermon. Afterwards, the minister asked him, "Ezra, what were you doing in church?"
"Taking notes, sir. I's eager to learn."
"Let me see," said the minister, and he glanced over Ezra's notes, which looked more like Chinese than English.
"Why, Ezra," he chided, "this is all nonsense!"
"I thought so," said Ezra, "all the time you was preaching it!"