EMBRACE YOUR IGNORANCE
“Stop it, just stop it. I can’t take it anymore.” I feel like Phoebe Buffay sometimes screaming at her bickering friends on the show Friends. And you should, too. Relentlessly bombarded on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, websites, blog posts, emails, the plethora of social media, I’d grab hands full of hair and yank it out if I hadn’t shaved it off. Add news programs, talk shows, late night shows, regular round-the-clock TV shows, newspapers, gossip at the corner grocer, or the regulars at the donut shop. Like the old saw, excuses are like assholes, everyone has one. Same goes for opinions.
I can easily list a hundred items people will quickly lose their shit over.
User IDs, passwords, identity theft, salt, cancer funding, porn access, 2nd Amendment, Elizabeth Warren, the American flag, transgender football players, Muslims, polyamory, romance novels, Greg Lauer, wildfires, unions, neo-Nazis, Brexit, Rachel Maddow, Bill Burr, breast feeding, flip-flops at the White House, Whitewater, legalizing pot, high school heroin epidemic, classified material handling, climate change, Trump, drugs, Hillary, ISIS, Amazon, Bezos, Gates, football, Madmen, gay pride, wedding cakes, college debt, the war in Iraq, guns, fast foods, fat, capitalism, #metoo, Manchester United, heavy metal, green tea, socialism, Catholic priests, Iraq, chlorofluorocarbons, Afghanistan, oil, GMOs, pesticides, the population bomb, quinoa, intermittent fasting, supplements, Syria, abortion, the First Amendment, Red Pill, rising tides, evolution, the approaching Apophis asteroid, VA, NASA, glass ceiling, sinkholes, SPF-killing coral, the impending trade war, Microsoft 8, not-so-social media, IRS, Israel, soccer, Bad Moms, Queen Elizabeth, the “illegal” uranium sales to a Russian company, China, bad boys, 50 Shades, millennials, welfare, the weather, traffic, the wall, price of gas, Imo’s pizza, late night TV hosts, Roseanne Barr, Rosie O’Donnell, Pluto, glaciers, Amazon sales tax, Tea Party, aliens, TSA, fake news, “real” news, minimum wage, the border debacle with separating kids from their parents as their parents attempt to enter the country illegally…
…and you can now see I have pissed off everyone!
The list of hot button issues is endless; grows every day. It seems everyone’s job is the immersion to offend or defend the big banner issues de jure that they lose themselves and the energy to be what they want to be.
You can’t get away from them, can you?
Well, maybe you can. You don’t have to let them into your world.
I hesitate to utter (or write), hence I add volume to the clutter, but…
Ignorance is the amazing personality trait you can acquire, but it takes practice and talent.
You can go about your day with the sun at your back, without a care in the world, unaware of what is around you and concentrate on the things most important to you. You can smile and wile away the hours with the work or recreation you have set aside for yourself.
Blessed ignorance is not about being ignorant. Quite the opposite. I like the 12th century definition of what ignorance was. It is the “want of knowledge.”
Read. Study. Cross-check facts and figures. Be analytical. You should be well-read; read everything, have an open mind, compare arguments, learn new things, learn about people, all kinds, every kind, know what is going on, ask questions, and have a solid personal opinion.
Just don’t share it.
I said a personal opinion. Keep it private, where you can maintain its control. You won’t change the opinion of others anyway, why try? We’ve talked about having a “real” discussion on race for 50 years but then with the first black president, President Obama, in office, we couldn’t accomplish that. Why should you try?
One of the ways to be happy is to not get sucked into other people’s spheres, their mania and their hysterics. Their spinning will pull you into their atmosphere and you’ll have to fight like hell to get back out.
I’ve been there, arguing for hours defending or attacking this candidate or that. At the end, we all reeked from the crap we were flinging.
I was the politico guy, the history expert, the science expert, the military expert, the personal relationships expert, that would champion one particular aspect, be able to quote this and that forgotten factoid. It used to consume me and go into me like a cancer. I had to ferret it out and battle the wits of anyone who uttered a contrary opinion.
Where did it get me? Nowhere but hypertensive, anxious, or pissed, but no one changed their mind.
Blessed ignorance means to know why YOU believe something and you can’t get there by talking. You get there by keeping your mouth shut and listening. Sit there, smile, and let them wonder why.
Enjoy this great world by remaining silent.
You want to be happy?