Feelings
Ignorance is bliss, but knowledge is power!
By Emmanuelle
Last week, we told the story of a woman who lost the love of her life in None So Blind Than One Who Will Not See. Sadly, that story is not one of a kind. If there were any other thing we can be sure of in this world, it would be the adage that history keeps on repeating itself through a salinlahi of human foibles from generation to generation. We have such short memories, and learning from our mistakes is just not one of our very strong points.
Our readers inquire: what happened next to Lenny, Annie and Gorgy? We give the same answer, one that we had always given to those who read about Boys Don’t Cry and our other past true stories: the continuation is in the wings, waiting to unfold somewhere in time.
Meanwhile, we look to the sky, we hum a tuneless song, we introduce other topics that the inquiring readers may not pull out their hairs or scratch their faces in frustration. We understand the feeling of just hanging there, going nowhere. Bitin.
Some writers are exceptionally fond of weaving popular sayings into their works. And what are sayings but the wisdom of the people, the wit of the street? And if the people are of two minds about what they really want, these sayings would reflect the contradiction in their minds. Thus, as early as the end of the 5th century B.C., Sophocles recognized that a total, cabbage-like ignorance is the sweetest life. Also, Erasmus in his Adagia of 1536 said in Latin that to know nothing is the happiest life. Thomas Gray, in his Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College in the year 1742 reworked the same thought into ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.
It is logical that we can only be troubled by the things we know about. What stops us from finishing off our fresh salad is the sight of the worms on the lettuce or the tomatoes. We would have gone on crunching and swallowing happily if the unpalatable hadn’t been pointed out to us.
We would not have refused to tagay from the same glass that have dizzily gone around the circle of our friends in the spirit of some celebration, if we haven’t seen one of the guys squirt and spew filth from his gums unto the mouth of the glass. Yak!
In the same vein, what the eye doesn’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over. This saying has the most common, thus the most varied application. From the salitang-kalye type: the wife is always the last to know. To the kind but ultimately cruel advice: leave her in ignorance, what she does not know would not hurt her.
Then choose what you may from the two idiomatic forms that had sprung from Ignorance is bliss: blissful ignorance and blessed ignorance.
On the other hand, the more we know, the stronger the influence we can exercise on others. Stories about the good sense of acquiring knowledge, especially forbidden or illicit, are as old as the Garden of Eden. Take the serpent’s sales pitch that persuaded Eve to sample the fruit of the forbidden tree: then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil. It was seduction beyond compare – to possess God’s omnipotent power as just one of the benefits of knowledge.
In 1620, in his Novum Organon, England’s Francis Bacon explained further the ancient relationship between knowledge and power: Knowledge and human power is synonymous. And again, in 1626, in his Meditationes Sacrae: De Haeresibus – Knowledge itself is power.
So, you see, not only the people but the sayings that reflect their thoughts can really drive you crazy. They are witty; they are cynical. They complement; they contradict one another. Like rabbits out of a magic hat, one can conjure a saying to fit any occasion. But to base a moral system based on these popular sayings is an exercise doomed to fail from the start.
Imagine the chaos when you are told you are never too old to learn, then at the same breath, you cannot teach old dog new tricks. Nothing is gained when you venture nothing, but it is better to be safe than sorry. Many hands make light work but too many cooks spoil the broth. Strike while the iron is hot, but haste makes waste.
To all those who love, absence makes the heart grow fonder, but out of sight, out of mind! So, look before you leap, but he who hesitates is forever It is better to be safe than sorry lost!
(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/feelings/)
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