"I'm confronted with my own ignorance all the time"

I’d rather be challenged by somebody, rather than have somebody say, ‘Dude, where are you going to have drinks after the show?’ I love a spirited debate as much as anybody. I even like being wrong, if something can make a good case … on something. In a lot of ways, that’s what I do professionally, traveling. I’m confronted by my own ignorance or misunderstandings all the time.

- Anthony Bourdain, Chicago Tribune interview by Kevin Pang (via 37signals)

Oddly coincidental quote, since I was just going to blog about my own ignorance.

I was amusingly reminded of my own ignorance when I watched a little mini-marthon of Chucks yesterday. Chuck is a TV show on NBC. It's in its 3rd season, and has a modicum of success. And might get picked up for a 4th, even though its ratings have been dropping.

But the funny thing is, I ridiculed this show when NBC was advertising for it originally. I thought it looked like a waste of money and these actor's talents. I predicted it wouldn't run a whole season.

What's funny about that is not that I made a terrible prediction.

What's funny is that it's now one of my favorite shows. :)

It had me at the first episode.

Just a nice humbling reminder to me, that we can be certain of very few things. "Certainty is the mother of fools" for sure. And it's also a reminder to me about why it's so important to keep putting stuff out there just to see what happens. I can't predict the next best iPhone app on my own. I can't even predict which of my blog posts are going to do well.

Some days I spend a good chunk of time writing, thinking that this is really going to resonate with folks, and I end up getting 50 people to read that post. Other days I spend 15 minutes writing something I think no one but myself is going to care about, and 7,000 people show up to check it out.

It's another good reason to still believe something like prediction markets can come in handy.

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