By the time we are adults, knowing can feel safer than asking. We nod at a word we do not understand. We stay quiet when someone mentions a place we have never heard of. Nobody sees the gap, but nothing new gets through it either.
There is another way to be in the conversation. “What does that mean?” “How did you learn?” “Can you show me?” Small questions, without an apology attached.
We do not have to turn every interest into expertise. A recipe can remain a pleasant experiment. A song can send us looking for an instrument’s name. Learning one thing does not require a plan for the next ten.
Some days, being interested is enough. There is still so much we have not noticed, and we are allowed to begin with a question.