Is Ignorance Bliss?

Decidedly Not

Ignorance is the lack of information, knowledge, understanding or education. Too often, arrogance and ignorance go hand in hand. Arrogance can lead a person to ignore something important, and ignorance of other's abilities and talents can also make a person arrogant.

(Mar 24, 2021 the daily coach)

Surya Prakash Mohapatra gives more insight:
Suppose you have gone to a new city for the first time. In one evening, you are walking on a suburb street. The street lights are on and you are enjoying the walk. All of a sudden the lights go off and there is complete darkness. How do you feel? Well, you feel scared, stressed and anxious, don't you? But why is it so? The cause of your fear is your ignorance about the place and situation.

The example about ignorance is simple yet profound. Sree Sree Thakur Anukulchandra says, "Ignorance creates anxiety for man, and wisdom gives man peace. Ignorance is the cause of grief, and knowledge is bliss."

The primary cause of Ignorance is 'ego'. People with obsessed ego are self-centered. They believe that the world revolves around them and they are at the center of everything. They believe that they deserve all the attention, adulation and respect from everyone else. 

How to Deal with Ignorance

There's an entire political constituency that deals in ignorance. The leaders of this movement are enriching themselves at the expense of those who follow them. The odd part is, they make money by offering products, mostly supplements. 

There's really no way to avoid them. So how can I deal with them? Since I can only have a direct influence on myself, I found these tips by Weylie Li helpful.

• Feed Your Mind with Digestible Information
• Ask Yourself Honest, Yet Sometimes Uncomfortable Questions
• Become Super-Forecasters by Collaborating With Others
• Constantly Look for Alternative Opinions
• Curb the Impulsion to Assign Judgments to Events

How do you deal with ignorant people?

Think Aloud offers 10 simple ways to deal with ignorant people.

1. Self Control
2. Don't expect too much from an ignorant person
3. Ask a friend for advice
4. Try to be kind
5. Ignore them
6. Try to have an honest conversation
7. Be emphatic
8. Entertain your mind
9. Wait for them to make a mistake
10. The best defense is a good offense.

Best Ignorance Quotes

1. “Ignorance is the night of the mind, but a night without moon or star.” – Confucius

2. “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

3. “The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance.” – Herodotus

4. “The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about.” – Wayne Dyer

5. “Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance, is the death of knowledge.” – Alfred North Whitehead

6. “You are not entitled to your opinion. You are entitled to your informed opinion. No one is entitled to be ignorant.” – Harlan Ellison

7. “Truth is, by nature, self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.” – Mahatma Gandhi

8. “Entire ignorance is not so terrible or extreme an evil, and is far from being the greatest of all; too much cleverness and too much learning, accompanied with ill bringing-up, are far more fatal.” – Plato

9. “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.” – Daniel J. Boorstin

10. “Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is poverty. Ignorance is devastation. Ignorance is tragedy. It all stems from ignorance.” – Jim Rohn

The Shape of Things to Come

 

Climate Change is No Hoax

For those of us who are in denial about how climate shapes our lives, Reuters is reporting how climate events on the other side of the world could cause food prices to skyrocket. 

This is merely a foretaste of what climate change will bring us. You may believe that global warming is a hoax. You may end up eating those words.

• Wheat worries: China's growers are facing “disaster” after heavy rains, Ukraine might lose 20% of its winter-grain yield because of poor weather, and Australia's wheat and barley output might fall by a third next year because of el Niño.
• Even less-tasty news: A slump in global cashew demand has pushed Ivory Coast's industry to the verge of collapse, and heavy rain in the west-African nation is raising fears of disease in its cocoa crop.

These events, by themselves, are not proof of climate change and global warming. The severity and increasing frequency of these events are. The orange skies and unbreathable air in the eastern part of the United States are the result of a very dry winter in Canada. The National Geographic warns the orange skies are the future. We better get used to it.

We tried to control the world around us pulling ancient matter from the ground and burning it, eradicating entire chunks of ecosystems, without bothering to think about long-term ramifications … We forgot that we can’t just take without consequences; we forgot that we’re inextricably part of a larger system.

- Elizabeth Weinberg, Unsettling Extinction Together (2022)

There's a line from a 60's tune, Shapes of Things, used as inspiration for the title of this article, "Will time make men more wise?" 

The lyrics in the second verse ask, 

Now the trees are almost green
But will they still be seen?
When time and tide have been
Fall into your passing hands
Please don't destroy these lands
Don't make them desert sands

It seems greed and self interest got in the way.

Things That Work / Moving Forward

 

Nothing erases the past. There is repentance, there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all, but that is enough.

- Ted Chiang, The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate (2007)

None of us can change the past, but when time is right, we all need to be ready to move on. Or, as one friend often said, "Thus encouraged, we press on."

We all make mistakes. We say and do things we live to regret. 

And yet, there is grace and forgiveness. We can all begin again.

Where There Is Love | Playing For Change (HD)

When I worked at WUWM, I would have put this in the jazz rotation. The sound of surprise and exciting discoveries took us beyond strict definitions. Believe it or not, these decisions were incredibly controversial. The audience didn't complain so much. It was the volunteer staff of jazz announcers. Their rancor made me feel like I had arrived. They were constantly sniping at each other, claiming only they knew the true jazz. How arrogant.