[Necrox]

What does this quote make you think?

 

[tjbgem]

What does this quote make you think?

Opposite is true:

Knowing is torture

 

[Shrk108]

Life is suffering.

 

[kaychivers]

Don't become jaded

 

[FaveteLinguis]

Veritas vos liberabit

The truth will set you free.

I cannot really think of an instance where knowing the truth has put me in a worse position. Emotionally, uncomfortable truths can play havoc before acceptance comes. I do think that the pain is often a necessary catalyst for growth though.

 

[Wellsy]

Well i'm pretty sure there are studies around intelligent people leading happy lives where they have successful careers and quality marriages. The statement also makes it seem like only a fool can be happy by being unaware of the terrible reality that is around him. Sounds too cynical and unappreciative of other aspects of mankind. It surprises me for all the critical views some people can have, being so smart they are downtrodden by their views and totally ignore what good there is.

It's just too cliche, regardless of your knowledge you can be depressed and misanthropic or you could be fulfilled in many aspects of life and grateful for it. It's a matter of perspective and temperament.
You can bring down most people with how terrible people are but how biased it is to present only the worst of mankind and say 'this is what they are' completely missing out on the what is magnificent within humanity as well. Understandable that we can be brought up on ignorance and lies as children as we are yet to learn of harsher experiences and realities in our world that weren't existence growing up. That a big problem is that we are taught of what should be instead of what is, how much disappointment comes from unrealistic expectations of anything. But I would hope a person who is smart enough to see as much has the wisdom to not dig themselves a hole of pity and despair.

 

[Monsieur Melancholy]

It makes me think of all the ignorant knobs around places like my hometown, their shortsighted ambitions, and the false paradise they've constructed for themselves.

 

[Crimson Ash]

Ignorance is truly bliss for those that life around them matters not. They live for themselves and ultimately die for themselves.

Knowledge doesn't solve ignorance and if the wrong knowledge is distributed it only further enables ignorance.

Wisdom is the true opposite of ignorance, and those that seek and find it have to accept the harshness of truth but have the ability to then learn and grow from that wisdom.

 

[mrkedi]

i have seen ppl that does life the principle of "ignorance is bliss", and all i can say to that is "go die in your own f-king bubble".

really harsh, but that's all i can think.

 

[ATLeow]

Ignorance is quite possibly bliss. But only for you.

You make shit worse for everyone ELSE you encounter, but then again, you wouldn't know about that...huh.

 

[Monsieur Melancholy]

i have seen ppl that does life the principle of "ignorance is bliss", and all i can say to that is "go die in your own f-king bubble".

really harsh, but that's all i can think.

Well, if that's the case, my hometown and general surrounding region comprise one big bubble.

I guess that makes me the prick that tries to pop the bubble.

 

[FearAndTrembling]

As a general rule, the smarter you are, the more life sucks. My cat doesn't worry about shit. He doesn't worry about the fact that his life span is like 15 years and he is halfway there. He doesn't opine about how we was torn from his mother, and he doesn't miss her. He doesn't ever think about his own mortality, or worry about the health of others. His past doesn't haunt him, nor does anxiety about the future paralyze him. He just lives, in the truest sense of the word. He is ignorant as fuck, his world is incredibly simple and without reflection, but it is good. Ignorance is freedom is this sense. I know it is hip to to be misanthropic and act like humans are some terrible plague who destroy nature, but nobody deserves more sympathy than humans. Nobody has it harder.

 

[Monsieur Melancholy]

As a general rule, the smarter you are, the more life sucks. My cat doesn't worry about shit. He doesn't worry about the fact that his life span is like 15 years and he is halfway there. He doesn't opine about how we was torn from his mother, and he doesn't miss her. He doesn't ever think about his own mortality, or worry about the health of others. His past doesn't haunt him, nor does anxiety about the future paralyze him. He just lives, in the truest sense of the word. He is ignorant as fuck, his world is incredibly simple and without reflection, but it is good. Ignorance is freedom is this sense. I know it is hip to to be misanthropic and act like humans are some terrible plague who destroy nature, but nobody deserves more sympathy than humans. Nobody has it harder.

On a lighter note, and to put this in a more humorous context:

:laughing:

 

[FearAndTrembling]

that video is absolutely hilarious and sums up exactly what I was trying to say.

 

[Bago]

Sometimes not knowing something is better to really know what happened.

 

[StElmosDream]

How ignorance at times is reserved for the few or seen as a mutually beneficial act of compliance (collusion some might say, in maintaining 'a norm') or inherited in the sense of 3+ generations on welfare cheques by choice never having aspirations; inheriting a fear of becoming something more than elders and being cast out as the 'troublemaker'.

Trust but verify, springs to mind for me when ignorance (or simplicity) can be a choice or 'the path of least resistance' or the absence of awareness.

 

[ficsci]

This reminds me of a book I recently read. "The Birth of Pleasure" by Carol Gilligan.

She theorizes that the patriarchal society values the concept of "truth" above everything else, even at the sacrifice of love, and it leads to tragedy.

But then again, that "truth" is whatever version of "truth" our society seems to value. (i.e. one based on reasoning, over intuition or emotions)

 

[omgitsangela]

You can never experience bliss without also knowing ultimate torment. Are the truly ignorant even capable of that? I think not. Our knowledge brings us pain, but it is also the thing that makes bliss possible.

Without a context, happiness is dulled right along with the suffering.

 

[RetroVortex]

I'm thinking about getting lobotomised... -_-

 

[FearAndTrembling]

You can never experience bliss without also knowing ultimate torment. Are the truly ignorant even capable of that? I think not. Our knowledge brings us pain, but it is also the thing that makes bliss possible.

Without a context, happiness is dulled right along with the suffering.

Plenty of creatures can be in bliss without knowing "ultimate torment". I don't know where you are getting that from. Torment does just that, it torments us; bliss does not need to be weighed against torment to be felt. Anymore than I need a great pain in my back for a massage to feel good, or be in pain for alcohol to make me feel good.

Burke wrote about this:

The human mind is often, and I think it is for the most part, in a state neither of pain nor pleasure, which I call a state of indifference. When I am carried from this state into a state of actual pleasure, it does not appear necessary that I should pass through the medium of any sort of pain. If in such a state of indifference, or ease, or tranquillity, or call it what you please, you were to be suddenly entertained with a concert of music; or suppose some object of a fine shape, and bright, lively colours, to be presented before you; or imagine your smell is gratified with the fragrance of a rose; or if without any previous thirst you were to drink of some pleasant kind of wine, or to taste of some sweetmeat without being hungry; in all the several senses, of hearing, smelling and tasting, you undoubtedly find a pleasure; yet if I inquire into the state of your mind previous to these gratifications, you will hardly tell me that they found you in any kind of pain; or, having satisfied these several senses with their several pleasures, will you say that any pain has succeeded, though the pleasure is absolutely over? Suppose on the other hand, a man in the same state of indifference, to receive a violent blow, or to drink of some bitter potion, or to have his ears wounded with some harsh and grating sound; here is no removal of pleasure; and yet here is felt in every sense which is affected, a pain very distinguishable.

Pain and pleasure are just blunt sensory instruments. They don't require one to feel the other. I don't need to experience a great tragedy to love or be blissful. I am not in any pain right now, but a particular woman showing me affection would be so euphoric. Her sex and affection does not make me feel good because I have experienced tragedy in the past. It just simply makes me feel good.

I also wanted to add this Tolstoy quote that I always liked:

I put men to death in war, I fought duels to slay others. I lost at cards, wasted the substance wrung from the sweat of peasants, punished the latter cruelly, rioted with loose women, and deceived men. Lying, robbery, adultery of all kinds, drunkenness, violence, and murder, all were committed by me, not one crime omitted, and yet I was not the less considered by my equals to be a comparatively moral man. Such was my life for ten years.

I am now suffering the torments of hell: I am calling to mind all the infamies of my former life—these reminiscences do not pass away and they poison my existence. Generally people regret that the individuality does not retain memory after death. What a happiness that it does not! What an anguish it would be if I remembered in this life all the evil, all that is painful to the conscience, committed by me in a previous life….What a happiness that reminiscences disappear with death and that there only remains consciousness

Knowledge and reflection on our lives can be poison. There are many memories that do nothing but harm us. To be free from memory is to be free from worry.