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 Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2007 6:19 am
I have a friend who is basically a spokesperson for the phrase "ignorance is bliss." He swears it's true and I agree with him sometimes. I'd be pretty happy right now if I didn't know that I'd have to go to school tomorrow, but that's small.
What happens if you know when the world's going to end?
1) You sulk. (No more bliss for you D:< )
2) You do something about it. (Ultimately bringing more bliss. More life = more opportunity to be happy because well, being dead doesn't seem like much fun).
3) You do nothing about it (perhaps you can't do anything), but you make the most of your final days. If I was dead looking back on my life I'd feel a lot better knowing I made the most of my final days rather than going on in a boring routine just because I didn't know I only had a week left.
Now, this friend also advocates pessimism and why anyone would want people to be negative is beyond me xD (He says he's tired of being let down, so he just expects it). I think that is an entirely different topic though. I dunno.
And then we have the classic examples of the deranged geniuses. The ones who are too smart for their own good. My friend would say "they know too much." I've heard lots of suicide stories or stories of brilliant people who have gone mad.
So, I'll give you some spoons just because I rambled quite a bit in this topic.
Is ignorance bliss?
How fine is the line between being a genius and being insane?
Feel free to throw anything else you can think of into this discussion.
D:< Trying to breathe some life back into this guild.
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Posted: Sun Nov 25, 2007 10:38 am
Hm, lots to say. First off, I think genius almost implies some degree of insanity, in the basest sense. If you understand something at a level beyond most "normal" people, something about your brain is different, generally in a chemical way or increased number of synapse connections, which is probably going to make you a little bit crazy. I don't think insanity is really a bad thing, in small doses. Yes, if it's going to make you kill people or something, that's bad, but if it's just thinking the world is going to end tomorrow, that's fine.
I don't think I could ever be a pessimist but I'm almost not really an optimist either. I'd like to say I'm a sort of optimistic realist. I don't think everything is going to be fantastic and that all people are good, but I think life in general is going to work out the way it was meant to be and that the flaws will iron out eventually. I have my moments of pessimism, but it's not a philosophical mindset to which I subscribe.
Ultimately, I don't think ignorance is bliss, at least not for me. I love learning, knowing, and understanding things. I hate when I feel un-knowledgeable about a subject, especially if I'm talking to someone who knows a lot more than I do and expects me to know more. my life really is a constant thirst for knowledge and understanding of how the world works, and I think I'd be quite lost if I didn't have something to learn about. I mean, I hate going to school as much as the next person, but generally because I don't like the environment, not because I don't enjoy the opportunity to learn.
Oh, and about breathing life into the guild...a thought would be to look into some of the popular discussions in ED and see if you can get some thoughts here on a related subject or something (since some of the issues like abortion and the war in Iraq are really broad). It might be an interesting take, anyway. And while you're there you may find some people to invite or something...
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Intellectual Elocutionist
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Posted: Wed Dec 12, 2007 2:38 pm
I've heard of that phrase before...but sometimes it isn't, really.
I don't know about you, but that friend of yours is right; I happen to be a pessimist myself. Why continue with all the letdowns in life when you can expect it. You can see it coming anytime now. It's like Murphy's Law: anything that can happen, will. blaugh
I also heard of accounts where people are so intelligent, they go mad. I'm kinda borderline on that one. There are some bright people, and there are exceptional people. But rare is the case where the brightest student in the class feels convinced that people deserve to die.
Today, there are more kids that are being raised to become prodigies. Sure, there are some truly gifted, if not promising, prodigies out there, but most others are just rich, spoiled, godless brats whose only merit is a mountain of cash. evil
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Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 12:22 am
You know, I rather resent that remark - I go to a very selective and fairly expensive private school, and while I'm extremely grateful for the opportunity to learn in a really fantastic educational environment (although it's certainly not perfect) I find it extremely rude when people comment about how people who pay for education are spoilt brats, which is simply not true. I'd like to consider myself fairly intelligent, and at the very least I have a pretty unarguable talent for music theory (modesty aside...you could ask any of my friends or music teachers), and that has nothing to do with my family's ability to support that higher level of education.
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Intellectual Elocutionist
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Posted: Wed Dec 19, 2007 4:19 pm
I'm just going to write a general reply since I don't have much time (.__. I'm wrapping gifts for a dumb school thing).
I think the ignorance is bliss thing depends a lot on who and what you're surrounded by. Like Keakealani said, I don't feel happy at all when I'm in a place with a bunch of people who are catching on and I'm lost (I call this place "math class") and when I'm struggling with books I feel really disappointed with myself. So I think "ignorance is bliss" is one of those theoretical things. Maybe if you were alone and there were no outside influences it would be alright if you weren't inspired to try.
I don't like pessimism because well, if I know things are gonna happen, I'm going to be positive about them. I think not knowing makes me more upset and pessimistic than knowing does. I can't explain it very well. I'm having one of those empty minded days.
I'm not blindly optimistic, I just figure that all the bumps will be smoothed out and I'll go on living regardless.
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Posted: Fri Dec 28, 2007 9:25 pm
You flatter yourself.
Genius and insanity is like north pole and south pole. Both are different than normal.
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Posted: Wed Jan 02, 2008 10:37 am
Keakealani You know, I rather resent that remark - I go to a very selective and fairly expensive private school, and while I'm extremely grateful for the opportunity to learn in a really fantastic educational environment (although it's certainly not perfect) I find it extremely rude when people comment about how people who pay for education are spoilt brats, which is simply not true. I'd like to consider myself fairly intelligent, and at the very least I have a pretty unarguable talent for music theory (modesty aside...you could ask any of my friends or music teachers), and that has nothing to do with my family's ability to support that higher level of education. I know full well that not ALL private schoolers are snobs. But thanks for the enlightenment; I like knowing both sides of the story. smile But I still like my pessimism and borderline insanity better. wink
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Posted: Thu Jan 03, 2008 8:41 am
Is ignorance bliss?
-In certain cases, yes... but only if you're really ignorant. Once you start knowing things, they fester in your mind. However, knowledge can be bliss, too - determination and logic are key tools in optimism. If you know about bad things, you can start fixing them.
How fine is the line between being a genius and being insane?
-Not a line, more of a... field. A field about half the size of North America. Certainly, if you're a genius, there's something different about your brain, but one can be insane and still be stupid.
Feel free to throw anything else you can think of into this discussion.
-Hm... nothing else to reply to now. Maybe later. 3nodding
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Intellectual Elocutionist
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Posted: Sun Jan 06, 2008 11:08 am
I think there are insane geniuses, and sane geniuses...and I think that geniuses seem to be more susceptible to certain mental illnesses. But there are also a lot of mentally ill people who really aren't too bright, and lots of "normal" people in between. It's kind of random that way. I do think the changes in thinking required to be extremely intelligent (and I'm talking about those über genius-types, not just your average straight-A student-types) can influence other aspects of the brain that can be considered insanity...
I still really don't think ignorance is bliss. I dunno, I guess if you're completely ignorant it could be blissful, but it could be not-blissful (whatever that word is that's not coming to me...). I don't really believe that people can be truly 100% ignorant. I think everyone knows something which automatically puts you into that very human need to evaluate things.
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Posted: Sat May 31, 2008 11:37 pm
I feel I should point out that 'insane' is a legal term meaning that such a person is not legally responsible for their actions and, while the vast majority of such persons are indeed mentally ill, mental illness is not a universal prerequisite for insanity.
I am both a "genius" and a person with multiple mental illnesses: a psychotic disorder (either Schizoaffective Disorder or some flavor of Bipolar Disorder with psychotic features), Asperger's Syndrome, and ADD (Inattentive type).
My IQ is greater than 150 when I am depressed (I have never been tested while manic but I suspect that I would score significantly higher).
My condition is stable only due to medication and stress management; without them, I would be an hallucinating, overemotional, wreck.
As I see it, being a mentally ill genius is doubly challenging; one has to cope with both the difficulties presented by the illness and the pressure of being highly intelligent.
People are always pushing you to succeed at school and to get well, which can easily become contradictory goals.
I have decided to take no more than 3 classes per semester, in order to minimize the amount of stress I am under; thus far, my strategy has worked.
I have straight As for the first time in my life (I passed my single year of high school with Cs, then tested out razz ) and I am learning at a pace that suits me.
---------------
There are two examples of mentally ill genii that I can think of off hand, John Forbes Nash Jr., a Nobel Prize winning mathematician (schizophrenic), and Ted Kaczynsky, the Unabomber (IQ 167, schizophrenic, oddly also a mathematician).
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Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 8:04 am
Natsuri Keakealani You know, I rather resent that remark - I go to a very selective and fairly expensive private school, and while I'm extremely grateful for the opportunity to learn in a really fantastic educational environment (although it's certainly not perfect) I find it extremely rude when people comment about how people who pay for education are spoiled brats, which is simply not true. I'd like to consider myself fairly intelligent, and at the very least I have a pretty unarguable talent for music theory (modesty aside...you could ask any of my friends or music teachers), and that has nothing to do with my family's ability to support that higher level of education. I know full well that not ALL private schoolers are snobs. But thanks for the enlightenment; I like knowing both sides of the story. smile But I still like my pessimism and borderline insanity better. wink Come to think of it, my mother was from a private institution back in the Philippines. That was way before she immigrated to the States.
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