Here is how you get trapped in the 'Knowing How Paradox': Even if you think that you are blocked from doing something because you don't know how to do it, gaining the Knowhow to do it does not guarantee that you will do it.

Something else is stopping you from doing it.

If you look at this Paradox from the other direction, it goes like this: Something beyond 'knowing how to do it' mobilizes you to go ahead and do it.

If you are trapped inside of the 'Knowing How Paradox', you will never find that 'something else', because the 'something else' is not contained within the Space of the Paradox.

The Paradox itself blocks you from finding your way out of the Paradox.

Discovering that you are trapped inside the 'Knowing How Paradox' strongly suggests that some Part of you actually does NOT want to do the thing. You have a Hidden Competing Commitment.

Since you have not done the thing yet, it is evidence that the resisting Part of you still has at least 51% vote in your life.

Using Self Observation to Notice what is really going on is called 'Entering Reality'.

In case this matters to you, you can only do Magic when you are mapped directly onto Reality. If there is any kind of separation or buffer zone between you and Reality that allows Reality to move without you moving with it, you are not close enough to Reality to do Magic.

The capacity of knowing how to do, change, prevent, create, or eliminate something is precious because it is so practically useful in daily life's spectrum of lighthearted and serious situations.

Many years of Practice are usually required for a person to build enough Matrix to be Accountable for consistently deliver some kind of valuable Service.

Knowhow is not automatically bestowed upon a human being.

Traditionally, a young person would be sent out onto the road as a 'Journeyman' in the 'school of hard knocks' to learn how to actually use what they learned during their years of Apprenticeship. Only after surviving a number of scars or broken bones could a person be recognized as enough of a 'Master of the art' to then take on their own Apprentices. The scars witness to how the 'teaching' enters their 5 bodies.

To successfully traverse that Path requires a secret ingredient. The Universe will not grant you Knowhow without this mystical addition.

To understand Mystical Mechanics, it helps to look at things from the Universe's point of view. If you were the Universe, would you grant Knowhow to someone who is not truly Committed?

I don't think so.

This calls forth what looks like another Paradox: You won't get the Knowhow before you are Committed, but how can you rationally Commit to accomplishing something before you know how to do it?

This Paradox can be Paradoctored through realizing that it is Possible to Commit before you know how. Not only is it Possible, it may also be necessary.

The idea is preposterous from a Linear perspective. It makes no Reasonable sense at all to Commit to doing something until you know how to do it. It would be rather completely Unreasonable to Commit before you know how. But then... it would definitely be a Commitment, wouldn't it?

What would you do with the Knowhow if it was granted to you without you being fully Committed? Wouldn't the Universe consider this to be a sad waste Knowhow?

How much Knowhow have you already collected that you are not using?

What are you doing with all your stored up Knowhow? Are you keeping around 'just in case' you might need it some day? As some kind of insurance against eventual necessity when the Knowhow might possibly be needed?

What is the price you paid to acquire this Knowhow that you are not using? How many years? How much money? How much Attention that you could have used for something else?

What does it cost you to keep this Knowhow in the back of your mind or heart, even though you are not using it?

To what extent have you been trying to share your Knowhow with those who might need it but don't have it?

How happy do you think Gaia is that you might be hoarding a secret stash of Knowhow due to your neurotic fear of imaging you might some day need Knowhow that you do not have? Do you think you deposit the Knowhow in some Knowhow bank account and can withdraw it when you need it? Don't you think Knowhow decomposes or rusts when it is not regularly used?

If you got the Knowhow, who didn't? What is happening to them?

Your Box and Gremlin combination has the duty to implement and defend your Survival Strategy.

At this they are a nearly undefeatable team.

Defending your Survival Strategy has survival value until you gain enough Conscious Responsibility to begin your Authentic Adulthood Initiatory Processes, that is, until you are about 18 years old (unless you have been seriously unschooled during your entire childhood, in which case you may have built enough Matrix to hold the required level of Responsibility for Adulthood Initiations by the time you are 16 years of age).

After this moment of 'initiation ripeness', defending your Survival Strategy is like a baby chick who keeps glueing any parts of its eggshell back together if any part of it happens to fall away... or a mature butterfly gluing together from the inside any splits that happen to form in the sides of its chrysalis. If you get real about this, you can admit how many frantic efforts you have been making to do just this.

When the Universe (as E.C.C.O.) notices that you are wasting precious time and even more precious opportunity for your Being to evolve and move along into further levels of Authentic Adulthood, that you would rather stay in the University and try to collect another degree while someone else pays for your education, or you would rather keep living in your parent's house because you have a roof over your head, and your mother can keep her 'Mom' identity by washing your clothes, cooking your meals, and making your bed... this quirky behavior on your part may be enough to piss off the Universe, at which time it may need to hit you with 'The Hammer'.

The Hammer is some unconceivably painful wake-up call experience such as your house suddenly burning down, you getting some terrible disease, ending up in a tragic automobile accident, someone stealing all your money, your boyfried/husband running off with some other woman, etc. Do you know anyone who has been hit by The Hammer lately? The Hammer really exists. Guess who could be next?

You can avoid The Hammer by getting with the 'program' that your Being is designed for Responsible Evolution of Consciousness and that happens by making Authentic efforts to move along your Path. Human Beings are designed by Gaia for formidable Authentic Adulthood Initiatory Processes which begin when you are approximately 18 years old. How late are you? Are you believing your own Bullshit Reasons to try to avoid or delay becoming more human on your evolutionary Path?

Saying, thinking, or believing the Reason, "I don't know how..." as an excuse to not take evolutionary steps would be as worrisome as a one-year-old baby not crawling around to explore, or even trying to stand up on its own two legs. Evolution is an eventuality you cannot hide from without horrific consequences.

Check inside of yourself to see if you have some kind of Justification Mechine that keeps telling you stories that start with, "Well, at least..."

"At least I was right..."

"At least it is not my fault..."

"At least I got away with it..."

"At least I did not get dirty..."

"At least I could avoid taking a risk and possibly making a mistake and looking bad..."

During school it was stressed how important it is to understand. The 'coin of the realm' in school is knowing. If you know, you can 'please the teacher'. If you know, you can get a 'good grade'. If you know, then you will 'get a good job' and 'be successful'. If you know, then you will 'be happy'.

None of these socially acceptable 'prizes' mentioned above can actually compare with direct experiences such as the direct experience of free and natural adult aliveness, the direct experience of collaborative creation ecstasy, the direct experience of long-term radical relating, the direct experience of negotiated 5-body intimacies, the direct extended experience of archetypal Love in a Space, the direct experience of serving something greater than yourself, the direct experience of causing transformation, the direct experience of navigating nonlinear discovery space in a Team, the direct experience of building out new gamespace for regenerative culture to emerge on Earth, etc.

The invitation here is to investigate what your Value system is telling you to Value. Then figure out whose Value System it is really. Where did your Value System originally come from? Who else do you know has a similar Value System? How well do you like them? What does this Value System get for you, actually?

If 'knowing' is high up in your Values, consider what else there could be to Value if 'knowing' is only third prize.

There is a story of a General Practitioner Medical Doctor who was born on a farm in a small village. For years he helps with the local people's common colds, setting bones, stitching up cuts, giving medicines for diarrhea, and so on. One day it is discovered that his son has a brain tumor. The General Practitioner does not know what to do. He is struck powerless. Even after all these years of medical practice, there is nothing he can do to save his son.

The doctor rushes his son to the big city where there is a gigantic hospital and an expert Brain Surgeon. The Surgeon efficiently diagnoses the son's condition, arranges for brain surgery, removes the tumor, and saves the boy's life.

The next day the General Practitioner returns to the Brain Surgeon and hands him his MD Certificate. The Brain Surgeon is irritated and says, "What's this?"

The small town Doctor says, "My work is worthless. Even with everything I know, I could not save my son's life. You are the true Doctor. I should go back to being a farmer."

The Surgeon says, "Nonsense, Sir! Don't you realize? I am completely dependent on you continuing to do your excellent work in the village. If you do not handle all the house calls, all the dislocated shoulders, sprained ankles, ingrown toenails, and so on, I would be totally swamped here trying to do all that here at the hospital, and then I could NOT do my job. I need you to keep doing your work so that I can do my work! We are on the same Team."

By you providing the level of Nonmaterial Value that you can provide, others in Possibility Management can provide the level of Nonmaterial Value that they can provide. We are all on one Team.

This in NO WAY implies any kind of 'class system' where you 'must stay in the territory or the specialization that you find yourself in now'. Possibility Management is an evolutionary gameworld. One of the fundamental Traditions in Possibility Management is to do whatever it takes to responsibly Replace Yourself, time after time. Keep bringing in people from your Circle to learn how to deliver whatever you are delivering so that they can deliver it as well or better than you, and you can then circle to the next level of Conscious Incompetence in the Learning Spiral.

In this way, together, each of us learns to be a Spaceholder-Trainer, and eventually a Spaceholder-Trainer Trainer.

Then the copyleft Treasures of the Possibility Management global gameworld can be shared around the world. Together we are upgrading human thoughtware.

There is no top end on this Path, no 'Black Belts', no 'Masters', no 'enlightenment', no 'gurus'. It is all just this... that next EHP or Distinction or Practice or Doorway in front of you on the Path.

By encouraging each other to Pay Attention and participate, each of us faces the same challenge: that precise challenge which is standing there directly in front of you exactly where you are.

There is a lot to know about not knowing.

In fact, we made a whole website about Not Knowing.

What you need to know now about not knowing is that what you do not know about can be seriously influencing your life.

Just because you do not know about a thing does not stop that thing from fulfulling it functions, regardless of whether or not those functions are helpful to you.

Are you one of those people who has decided that you do not want to know about something because you are afraid that if you know about it, you might attract it into your life? So then your spend your time and attention tryíng to look for things to look away from. You look for things to not pay attention to.

(I am raising my eyebrows right now, looking at you with a general open question about how it's working out for you... your slightly wobbly strategy...)

The idea here is that there is a difference between trying to protect yourself by trying to not know about something, versus trying to intelligently interact and make choices because you are rather hyper-aware of what is possible and can therefore choose about something before it gets so close that you do not actually have a choice about going somewhere else.

The kind of 'not knowing' that proves to be of value for a Possibilitator is this: the not already knowing that something is possible or not possible, that something is going to happen or cannot happen, so that if you avoid the 'already knowing attitude' (staying in not knowing, or, as Lee Lozowick says, staying in the 'draw no Conclusions mind') you have more free Attention to use for Noticing what is going on right now (in a very small NOW) and Noticing Potentials, and with this you can make beneficial Navigational choices in the moment. That is the kind of 'not knowing' you can use in abundance as a Resource.

Using 'not knowing' as a resource seems contradictory from the viewpoint of the kind of 'knowing' that is so highly valued in modern culture. But it is not at all contradictory from the viewpoint of someone who wants to consciously manage and navigate what is Possible in a Space. Using 'not knowing' as a resource is simply a different set of skills.