“Not knowing something is often more comfortable than knowing it.”
Read more from Dictionary.com.
“It’s everywhere! Why are people happier in their on secluded worlds, lying to themselves and putting others down for a belief that they might have? Why are wars started over religion when no one knows the truth? Why are children beat up for being different? … Why is ignorance such sweet bliss to humanity and yet, at the same time, destroying us?”
Read more from Why is ignorance bliss? over at Allphilosophy.com
On a more personal note, a few phrases that Charlotte (aka Charlie) Hansen, the 22 year-old [on February 21] daughter of my brother Garry, wrote on Facebook got me awondering about ignorance when she penned those phrases in reference to me. I am thinking of her statements in which she used the phrases “Short Man syndrome (better known as the Napoleon complex)” and “you act more as a psychologist than an uncle” and “your urge to be perceived as the intellectual” – and that is just a few of them.
With that in mind, I found another web site that has a page containing this first sentence: “I’ve been warned that the intellectual’s life is somewhat disheartening because we know too much.” To take a look and have a good read, just move that computer mouse on over to If Ignorance is Bliss, What Should Intellectuals Do? from Philosophistry.com.
On a personal note also, our friend who just died had short term memory. He did not know how sick he was. There was an article in the newspaper recently that talked about a study in the Netherlands that people who did not know too much about their illness were much happier and much more comfortable than people who knew.
Roland,
Thanks for the insight. I now begin to understand why I lead such blissful existence.
Tim, I wonder how Blissfield, Michigan came to have that name.
Roland,
City names are mostly a mystery to me. They began in my youth with ‘What Cheer, IA’, but reached new levels of mystification when traveling in the Amish areas around Lancaster, Pennsylvania and discovering ‘Intercourse’ and (just down the road) ‘Blue Balls’. Somehow, that makes Blissfield seem the next logical step.
Tim;
I am aghast! Or, am I full of gas?…
How else can I respond to you but: “OMG!”
Maybe ignorance is the way to go. After all, it requires no thinking ability of any kind.