“Ignorance is bliss” is such a curious saying.
I suppose to some it could hold true in terms of receiving bad news, conjoined with the adage that “no news is good news.” I have a friend who claims that she’d rather not watch the news, because she doesn’t want to hear all of the terrible things that happen around our world. She’d rather live in blissful ignorance. But when making the conscious effort to avoid being informed, willing yourself to stay ignorant, doesn’t that erode away the true cluelessness?
A while back I went to a concert that was truly horrendous. So much so that I literally caught myself plugging my ears during certain songs. While I was there, with all the wretched music around me, I was doing my best to drown out the sound. Though still aware that the music was being played, and that it was bad, I could muffle the sound enough to soften its blow.
Isn’t that how that forced type of ignorance is? And the rest of us too. Maybe our avoidance isn’t as outright or noticed by others, but the fact that we have multiple methods of gathering nearly any piece of information we’d like gives our “ignorance” really no ground on which to stand.
And then I think: Is it honestly bliss? Really? Perfect happiness? Being that unaware of reality, detached from current happenings, does not sound like bliss to me; it wreaks of misfortune. Without some sense of awareness, there is no hope for help. Exposure to heartbreak is a driving force of personal growth. So isn’t ignorance, in essence, depriving you from that progress? Wouldn’t we all be better off, hard as it may be, if we took it upon ourselves to experience some mental or emotional discomfort in hopes that we may be able to relieve another’s physical tumult or ease the pain of their realities?
It’s very unlikely, after all, that you will stay in the dark about all topics forever. Once a light has been shone on the situations, it has also shown the time you’ve wasted in attempting to preserve your calm, peaceful perfection. There is nothing wrong with hoping for the best, but is that what we’ve come to - merely hoping with no action being taken? There is something so beautiful about embracing humanity -on any level.
Sure, being informed about the many faces of life’s disasters leaves us with the feeling of next-to-no control, but there still is that small bit, that little sliver of maybe. Maybe if we know, we can help.
[I really began this simply because that phrase came to mind. This is just somehow where my mind ended up.]
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