Ignorance Is Bliss

"No more - where ignorance is bliss,
'tis folly to be wise".

Thus said the poet Thomas Gray in the poem 'Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College'.

That line always used to amuse me. Later one day, when I was watching the Miss India pageant, a question was posed to the participants. It was - 'If ignorance is bliss, then why do you seek for knowledge?'. No offence, but for once, I felt the Miss India pageant judges asked a sensible question!! Something other than 'What would you do If your husband was cheating on you'? or even something as old as 'What do you think beauty actually is?' and stuff. Nice question. So according to me, Ignorance wasn't bliss. Thomas Gray had said that just in context with the poem. If ignorance was happiness, neither would I get into medicine nor would my parents be happy with me. The way life has to be led has to be learnt. You will be left nowhere if you are ignorant. Ignorance was equivalent to running away- or even being dumb. Only lazy people say that ignorance is bliss, just to cover up their laziness was what I always said.

But life changes. And it teaches you a Lotta things. You never know whats gonna happen when. Things happen totally out of the unexpected. Mistakes happen. You learn from them. You gain 'Experience', the greatest teacher in the world. Good things happen to you and you feel good, and then you know what you are supposed to do to get somebody happy.

But at times, 'Shit happens'. You try everything to set it right, but nothing works. Life takes its own road. You are so helpless, even prayers don't work and you feel that the line 'Try and try till you succeed' is nothing but bovine droppings!. And then you give up. You wanna get over it, but you are not able to. They say that a person's past never leaves him. So what to do then? The problem needs a solution right? So you keep on trying. There's nothing wrong in seeking happiness and even you are trying to forget whatever happened with you and trying to be happy.

So the process is on, and just then, every now and then, you end up getting to know things about the issue that was bothering you. You get to know even worse things. You keep getting more hurt. A couple of questions that all of us wonder at at such a stage,-'Why did this happen to me?Why on earth did I deserve this?Why do I have to get hurt when there is just no mistake of mine?'. The 'new updates' about the 'old issue' becomes a road block in your quest for happiness. If you haven't been in such a situation in your life, just imagine yourself in one. Then, at that moment, Won't you feel, "I shouldn't have got to know about this. I was happy without hearing what I heard just now. Getting to know that the issue is/was worse is just bothering me more!"? Wouldn't you feel that? Well, at that particular moment, "Ignorance is actually royal bliss" right? What say? I say Yes!!, It truly is. Can't stop somebody or something from hurting us. That's not in our hand. All we can do, is prevent our self from getting hurt. If it takes to be ignorant for that, then be it so. After all, nobody's more important than oneself. What say? Am I right or am I right? :)

Do write in.

Cheers,
Chandana C. Shekar