Smart people take curiosity over pride

I recently lost one of my best friends to cancer. I knew him from elementary school, and he was by far the smartest person I've ever met.

He was the kind of person who seemed to know almost anything. While remembering the memories with him, I wondered why.

There's a habit that all the smart people I know share; they take curiosity over pride. Whenever they encounter things they don't know or understand, they immeditately do a quick search on Google or even buy a whole book about it. They are not afraid of sounding / looking dumb.

Normal people like me tend to be too lazy to pursue questions like that. I do encounter lots of things I don't understand daily, but I go "oh well, it doens't matter" and forget about them.

Laziness isn't the sole reason. I think our ego gets bigger and bigger as we age. The act of asking something you don't understand or even looking it up seems embarrassing because of it. Ego becomes the cage for our mind.

Like Socrates said, “I know only one thing: that I know nothing.”, maybe knowing they are not smart is what makes smart people smart.