Familiarity is not Understanding

Familiarity is awareness. You’re aware that a closure is a thing in Javascript that lets you do some fancy things. You sort of know what Fannie May and Freddie Mac are. You know there’s a combustion engine in your car and it makes explosions that turn pistons. But as soon as someone else asks you “how”, or God forbid, “why”, you find yourself with the following options:

• Just say “I don’t know.”
• Go for it. Find yourself pursuing a tangled trail of fumbled points and backtracking that’s at least fifty percent qualifying statements. Perhaps by the end of the ordeal you’ve clambered to something that resembles understanding.
• If you’re a politician, deliver a confident, simple, charismatically worded point that somehow changes the subject without the audience noticing or caring.

This isn’t a normative statement, it’s just the way things are. And on top of that, familiarity is still useful.

It’s a pre-requisite for understanding. It also helps us draw connections and spark creativity. But for most people, adding more familiarity does not equate to understanding. Yet that’s the path many of us take: read blog post after blog post, or if you’re one of the smart types, book after book.

Where Familiarity Falls Flat

Familiarity is cheap. We can’t apply it to produce value.

To re-use an example from above: if your car’s engine stopped working, your passing familiarity with the existence of combustion engines as a mechanical concept will do you little good if you’re on your own. Only someone who truly understands how engines work would be able to fix it in a reasonable amount of time.

A deep understanding of a subject is a valuable asset.