‘Knowledge is power,’ some say. Individual ability has always been embraced; we praise and admire the brightest people in different fields. Sensically, we want to attain eminent ability as they do, but what if I tell you that individual ability has been drastically overrated?
Before looking into capability, let’s think about its polar — incapability first. Incapability, just like ignorance discussed in the previous articles, is omnipresent.
We know little about the world around us — only a few people can answer how zippers work, let alone complex machines like computers or airplanes. Incapability is just the same: No one can build a plane by himself, no one.
An individual’s capability is infinitesimal compared to his incapability. Despite that, humanity has managed to develop multifarious theories, systems, techniques, and machines that advance our life in many aspects. How is it possible?
Many accomplishments are made possible because of more than one person, there is very little one can do without aid. Think of scientists, they cannot discover new things if not for the earlier works. When we talk about relativity, we think of Einstein. What few people know is that Galileo Galilei (the guy who is famous for dropping balls from the Leaning Tower of Pisa) proposed a similar idea about 400 years earlier, which is referred to as Galilean relativity.
People rely on others to make progress. Not many people have ever won the Nobel Prizes, and they often get all the credit. But we often overlook the people not in the spotlight: the team behind scientists, the references behind writers, the sacrificers behind advocates. People do not accomplish things alone.
We work in a community. If our ancestors want to hunt a large animal, they attack together. The idea is just the same nowadays, everyone holds a bit of knowledge and does a bit of work, and together we can make magnificent things happen. This is an example of one plus one being greater than two: the work of a community is greater than what individuals could do separately.
Being capable is not enough, if you want to accomplish something, you need to be involved in the community. The skill of collaboration is important: we need to know what we can do as well as what others can do.
This is not to say individual ability is unimportant, but without being in the right position, its value is circumscribed. Some animals are strong, strong enough to kill a regular prey alone. However, if they attack together, they may hunt down an animal much larger than themselves.
In a community of knowledge, everyone contributes their value and accept value from others. We no longer have to memorize all the facts, master every skill, or think alone — knowledge and skills are interconnected in the community.
We have been putting excessive emphasis on individual ability. There are only a few main characters in a movie that manipulate the entire plot. But this is not how it works in reality: there are eminent people, but they cannot achieve much if not for the ‘side characters’. Individual ability cannot be effectively utilized without being complemented by others’ ability.
It is vital to train people’s ability, but it is just as important to have a system in which people can maximize their value.
