Welcome to Gaia! ::

I always just believed, "It's always too late to be ignorant," meaning, the only time someone actually doesn't want to know something is when they actually know it.

Conversely, I've always been irritated whenever I knew that there was something I didn't know, whether it be a secret someone was telling everyone but me or information about a subject I was interested in that someone wasn't telling me. Ignorance has never been "bliss" for me becaue even after I was told and didn't, in fact, want to know I was still relieved that I knew it. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but I'm pretty sure you're smart enough to figure it out. sweatdrop

You may not be excited for sunny days, but if a sunny day comes and you find the heat pleasurable, even if you don't know enough about your own existence to describe it even to yourself, you'll still feel content.



Well, not exactly. To go with the weather argument again:

Most people hate winter and love summer. Now let's say that everybody who hates winter and loves summer didn't know when in the year fall and winter would come. As far as they know, summer would last forever, and since they love summer, they would want it to last forever. Thus they would be happy not only with the current weather, but also with the illusion that the weather will not change.

Ignorance is bliss.

And this is where the "People fear what they don't understand, hate what they fear and destroy what they hate." thing comes in. To not understand, in that context, is to be introduced to something that is beyond one's comfort zone (ie. the familiar), and to be unable to, not necessarily understand in terms of comprehension, but not accept its existence.

Consider X-Men, because the concept of "People fear what they don't understand" was used a lot there. Normal humans understood what mutants were. That wasn't exactly the toughest thing to comprehend. However, mutants were beyond their comfort zone (which creates fear) and normal humans were unable to accept them (which, with fear, creates hate). Hence, the inability to "understand" = fear = hate = destruction.

Now, consider winter and summer again. Quite a lot of people take vacations to warmer regions when winter arrives. Why is that? Because winter is beyond their comfort zone and they are unable to accept its prescence; they want nothing to do with it. Thus they "destroy" their experience of winter by leaving. And once they arrive in the warmer regions, they become content with the heat they love so much.

Ignorance is bliss.

Concerning the nature of the comfort zone, there's also the factor of simply being content in one's life, retaining the knowledge one already has, and not bothering to learn anymore.

For example, to go along with your references to the War on Iraq.

Meet Joe Everyman. He's a programmer for a respectable software company. He's a mild athlete, has a balanced diet, pays his taxes, goes to church, has a small criminal record, has a wife and kids and multiple savings accounts. He lives the same day 7 times a week, week after week. And he is genuinely happy with his life.

Oh, and just for a joke, he also helps an old lady take out her garbage. xp

Why would he want anything else? And ergo, by extension, why should he care about anything else?

So a war in Iraq happens. The man in the electronic box that tells him what to do tells him that people in Iraq are terrorist savages and deserve every bomb dropped on them, and that Bush is a good man, and that like every other war America has been involved in, America is fighting the good fight.

However, Joe isn't even listening, because he doesn't give a damn. That war has nothing to do with his life, after all.

It is true that minds in groups tend to be much less productive than when solitary. However, one also has to take into account the "Joe Everyman" factor, and other factors, as well. That's why we have teams of scientists and doctors attempting to figure out the physical mysteries of the world, because a group of minds that is committed to the discovery of knowledge is far more powerful and possesses far more potential than a single committed mind. Therefore...



Not necessarily nothing at all. Simply to know nothing more is enough to live a life free of worry or doubt.

Ignorance is bliss.



That =/= living a life of ignorance. If you know nothing, regardless of how blissful you might feel, you won't find knowledge, which stops you from reaching Nirvana/Enlightenment, which defeats the purpose of letting go of all knowledge. What they really want you to do is to remove yourself from:

-Concern. You must accept everything that comes your way in your life.
-Desire. You must leave behind the world of the flesh mentally and spiritually before you leave physically.
-Dogmatic righteousness. It's true, dogmatic assertion leads only to dissention and not to truth, because differing dogmas will clash. Keep your beliefs, but accept the beliefs of others.

If you do those things and stick to 'em, you will be able to discover true enlightenment and ultimate knowledge and truth, which would place you far beyond ignorance.



It depends on the person. Intellectuals tend to be less happy because we have more, greater concerns; that's all. There are many factors in life that can make somebody happy or sad, including how one takes and deals with one's concerns and problems.