Testing
I was trying to think about what we have achieved by getting educated and gaining worldly knowledge... It was shocking.
Ignorance is bliss...
The more you learn and the more you know, the more you realize. The more you analyze. The more you think. Thinking a lot, an obsession, can prove to be one of the worst diseases.
Back to knowledge, I would say realization, though beautiful, is not always pleasant. The more you realize, the less prone you are to happiness. This might get a little confusing. All readers who wanna try and pounce on my blog (typical sarjan-giri) will find an opportunity in the previous line. But even I'm a little confused about it. But I can justify it:
Right now, if your dad beat you up badly... Really badly... It would have disastrous impacts on you. You would probably cry a lot, get into a depression and in worst cases, might lose out on life coz everything appears very dull. Why does all this happen? Because you KNOW it is 'wrong' for you father to do that. You KNOW you can fight against it. You KNOW you have self-dignity which you must protect and preserve.
What if the same thing happened to a person in the slums? By the way, it happens with almost every one of them! They don't get depressed... They don't sit and cry for days . Next day, you'll see them back to their small little playground with their tops spinning with the same vigor. WHY? Because they don't KNOW that what happened to them is 'wrong' and not justifiable. They don't know that they have the right to fight back. They live with it, forgetting very easily. But us highly educated people will never forget such a thing... It will remain in our memory as a scar where our rights were abused and our dignity was harmed.
MM says the poor guy don't feel depressed coz it happens to him evgeryday. Well... What if it happened to one of us everyday? We'd probably run away, keep crying all day or kill ourselves. The reasons for this are the same... Coz we KNOW...
What is YOUR aim in life? Some might say to be successful and some might say to be satisfied and happy. For me, success is when I am happy. But when you learn and realize more, you are less prone to happiness. Now I come to question why we want to know, why we want to realize...
Ignorance is bliss...
(Of course, some people might argue that they prefer to be in the present educated state rather living an ignorant life. Same here. But consider the fact that you can never know how it is to be ignorant coz u aren't (and vice-versa of course). Maybe it is better...)
I was trying to think about what we have achieved by getting educated and gaining worldly knowledge... It was shocking.
Ignorance is bliss...
The more you learn and the more you know, the more you realize. The more you analyze. The more you think. Thinking a lot, an obsession, can prove to be one of the worst diseases.
Back to knowledge, I would say realization, though beautiful, is not always pleasant. The more you realize, the less prone you are to happiness. This might get a little confusing. All readers who wanna try and pounce on my blog (typical sarjan-giri) will find an opportunity in the previous line. But even I'm a little confused about it. But I can justify it:
Right now, if your dad beat you up badly... Really badly... It would have disastrous impacts on you. You would probably cry a lot, get into a depression and in worst cases, might lose out on life coz everything appears very dull. Why does all this happen? Because you KNOW it is 'wrong' for you father to do that. You KNOW you can fight against it. You KNOW you have self-dignity which you must protect and preserve.
What if the same thing happened to a person in the slums? By the way, it happens with almost every one of them! They don't get depressed... They don't sit and cry for days . Next day, you'll see them back to their small little playground with their tops spinning with the same vigor. WHY? Because they don't KNOW that what happened to them is 'wrong' and not justifiable. They don't know that they have the right to fight back. They live with it, forgetting very easily. But us highly educated people will never forget such a thing... It will remain in our memory as a scar where our rights were abused and our dignity was harmed.
MM says the poor guy don't feel depressed coz it happens to him evgeryday. Well... What if it happened to one of us everyday? We'd probably run away, keep crying all day or kill ourselves. The reasons for this are the same... Coz we KNOW...
What is YOUR aim in life? Some might say to be successful and some might say to be satisfied and happy. For me, success is when I am happy. But when you learn and realize more, you are less prone to happiness. Now I come to question why we want to know, why we want to realize...
Ignorance is bliss...
(Of course, some people might argue that they prefer to be in the present educated state rather living an ignorant life. Same here. But consider the fact that you can never know how it is to be ignorant coz u aren't (and vice-versa of course). Maybe it is better...)
6 comments:
What the fuck?? How the hell can you say that knowledge leads to unhappiness?? Thats just stupid...
I did not say knowledge leads to unhappiness. I said the more you know, the more you are prone to sadness and depression.
People at us look at the faults in society and crib about them. "Life's a bitch", right? Knowledge and realization have made us think this way. Uneducated and even stupid people don't think this way... Coz they can't! they don't have the potential and the power to.
If you still don't believe the fact that knowledge leads to people being less prone to happiness and that ignorance is bliss ask yourself:
1] Why is USA suicide rate 5 times (around 13 times in teens) that of an average of Lesser Developed Nations?
2] Why is the society in USA so fucked up? (If you believe me)
3] Why is Nigeria the hapiest nation on Earth? (Very arguable check this out : http://www.commondreams.org/views03/1229-09.htm)
i kinda agree with u...butits very vaguely put..first of all knowledge of what? if knowledge in general then what kind of information. for example knowledge that i may not have shoes but there are people on the stret who dont have feet makes me content with what i have and thus happy..i think what ure trying to say is knowledge of something better than what u already have makes u less prone to happiness. somewhat that maybe not worded in the best way. but then buddhas case was entirely the opposite. hmmm. k. i think its more about perseption. i am a firm believer that attitude and perception play a very important role in the happiness qoutient of a persons life. merely by the way one looks at an occurence or piece of information can make him happy or sad. like say i was a boy in the slums and i acquired knowledge that my father beating me up was wrong and that i could fight against iti would be happy that i am not so disrespectful to my father and feel proud and tell my father to be proud of me. i would also not be bothered..i would think these educated ppl are crazy..but maybe to stop the hurt i would get my dad arrested..and i would be much happier..any one of these or a combination of the above could happen either way not making me less prone to happiness. complicated stuff. ur theory has a basis but cannot be generalized so vastly.
Well... like everyone else out here, I don't completely agree. Coming to the slum example particularly, if the kids don't react the way WE would, it's probably simply because they are now so used to it that they've kind of numbed themselves. But they would definitely have reacted the same way for the FIRST few times when it happened...
And about USA being "depressed" - I would say it has very little to do with education (or the lack of it)... it is more to do with their social system. LDCs, on the other hand, usually have close-knit families and a good social support system though they lack things monetarily.
Look at the other side... if we DIDN'T educate people, they could still be exploited/abused, but they wouldn't fight for their rights and dignity. And I'm sure that's not what we want...
Anyway, sorry for the loooong comment but you write really well. :)
Reply to MM:
You did not get my point MM. You are saying that if we did not educate people, they would get exploited and abused.
I think its the other way round,- If you don't educate people, they can never feel abused! They can never feel like fighting for their rights! They will live under the 'illusion' that whatever happened to them was okay and they will be happy the way they are. On the contrary, if you educated them, they will feel like they're being abused. before we go on to fighting for rights, let stop here for a while. They wil FEEL abused! You know how much that sucks?? Life will be a mess, you'll feel all USED and WORTHLESS.
That is all I am saying.
Ignorance, here, would be bliss. Ignorant people will not feel abused or feel like fighting for their rights.
And yeah... About the being beaten up part. I guess that was not a great example. What if a girl got raped? If someone in our society got raped you know what a big thing it would be? You know how depressed the person would be? In the educated world, being sexually abused is an oh-so-big thing... Why? Coz we are taught tha it is bad! We are told that we should be depressed. To someone in the slums who has never heard about a rape, I am pretty sure it would not be that bad. Because her mind has not been infested with knowledge about what has happened. because no one has told her how she will feel.
Feelings, most of the time, are more a reflection of what society says you should feel like. For example, being a head boy was such a big achievement. It was such a happy occasion. That's what everyone thought. I got like 10s of hugs and 100s of calls and 1000s of smiles. Let me stop there...
Sorry, next example. Suppose its your birthday... Why do you feel happy? Coz you're supposed to.
I guess I digressed, but the last 2 paragraphs were a support to how infestation of knowledge in one's mind causes manifestation of feelings.
And yeah, by the way, MM - I don't think i write well. Would not end up with a fucking 4. Maybe I think well. Thats why you read this.
Response to All Day Long I Think Of Things' comment:
The delegate of Running Blind apologizes to the director for writing a blog vaguely!!
This is NOT A MUN dude... The entire point of my blog was to be vague so that it applies to everything possible. I was trying to frame a theory, and a theory is good only when it is applicable to almost al things.
Newton said,- Gravity is a force between 2 bodies of finite mass.
I kinda agree, but its vaguely put, first of all - what kinda bodies? NO!!! All kinda bodies!
I am talking about knowledge in general. If knowledge actually had categories which we could talk about, then maybe I could point out. But in my mind, knowledge is knowledge. What kinda knowledge? I don't know! Do you know? is tehre any kind of knowledge?
And dude... I can understand what MM said. But do you realize what you are saying? You are saying that you will fight against your father but taht does not mean you are disrespecting him. It pretty irrelevant if you respect or disrespect him, but... if you're talking about the 'happiness' you will get in fighting with your father, I think I don't see any. You realize getting beaten up is wrong. And you fight against your father.
Being VERY optimistic, you would have money to find a lawyer and would win the case. First of all, all the pain and suffering you will go through in figting the case is probably not a great thing. Even if you do not consider that, you won the case... NOW WHAT? Your father is probably in jail and there is no source of income for your family. You have wasted 3 years of your life fighting a case.
Again, society always sees a case like this (if won) as a victory for the victim. Only the victim knows how screwed up his life is after he has 'won' the case.
Now, let me give you a reality check. What if you do not have the funds or other resources to fight the case? You will live your life KNOWING that you have been WRONGED and ABUSED... that would be pleasant.
Ignorance is bliss, believe it or not..
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