Ignorance is not Bliss, Ignorance is Ignorance

  Our last day here in the Atlanta area, then we head down to Florida for the winter.  This morning some thoughts woke me up, so I decided to write them down.  It came through in an article format.  

   There are many things that keep us in the dark, keep us from going deeper, from pushing on when we know there might be more to the story.  Here are three ways you might be blocking yourself from finding a deeper truth.

1.   You aren’t curious enough.

      Great thinkers are incredibly curious individuals. When you hear a new piece of information, what do you do? How do you consider it? Have you become comfortable with a certain source, then believe whatever they say? What if they don’t know all that you think they do? How could one person know all of the truth, without exception? 

Do you tend to think superficially, looking at something to make logical sense, and as long as it sounds good, investigate no further?

      Most of us would rather be comfortable than challenged.  And, many of us reading that would say, well, of course, who wouldn’t?  But this is a big problem.  Out of our need to feel comfortable, we sacrifice our Soul, and while that may sound like an outlandish statement, if you stop and think about the times you have chosen comfort over deeper investigation into areas of truth, you will find that it holds up.  

     We don’t have the heart to follow that little voice in us that said, ‘hey, what did they just say, that didn’t sound right to me’ or, ‘How do you know that?’ ‘Is that all there is to the story?’ How did the opposing side come to their conclusion?’ 

    We’ve become afraid of questioning the status quo because we are too stressed, too tired, and maybe too lazy.  Or, possibly, too trained to not think for ourselves and let everyone else do our thinking for us. The old adage ignorance is bliss is no longer holding up.  Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is ignorance.  While you may be able to have some false sense of comfort by keeping your head under that proverbial sand, that illusion will only be temporary.  Eventually the piper will be paid by a lack of energy and enthusiasm when you let others do your thinking for you.

      The solution to this lack of investigative motivation is not to find a way to somehow manipulate ourselves into being better thinkers, or to judge ourselves, but inspiration.If you can let your curiosity factor kick into high gear no one will be able to stop you from questioning and thinking. 

 2. You aren’t willing to be wrong.

      Some of us would just about rather die that be proved wrong, especially in situations where we are trying to impress or finesse.  Imagine you are at a dinner party, seated at a table where you don’t know anyone, and you make a statement about some trivial fact, and are immediately challenged by someone.  Everyone else agrees with the other person, saying, oh yes, I’ve heard that too.  How would you feel?  Chopped liver comes to mind. 

    How did you feel back in grade school when you raised your hand, sure of the answer, and when you were called on, blurted out the right answer, only to be told you were wrong?  Possibly this didn't phase you at all, but if it did, and if you tend to take things like this personally, taking it as a measure of your intellectual ability and level of competence, you are less likely to come to well thought out conclusions of depth because you will be too afraid of being proved wrong.  You will more likely tend to stay tucked within the status quo, because, at least it won’t be your own ideas that are being attacked, you will be able to name a hundred people that think the same way you do, and, when put on the spot, you probably will.

      If our curiosity factor is high enough, we would rather know the truth than be right.  Our ego lives in right or wrong, and it loves and needs to be right.  It especially likes to be right when others are wrong.  I thrives on separation and being the top dog so to speak.  But what if we could step out of the need or even desire to be right, and just sincerely want to know what is really going on?  What is the truth, really?  

     In this non-attached and free space, if someone tells us we are wrong or off the mark this ideally can help us to think more deeply on a subject, clarify certain aspects of it, or, possibly even lead us into a new direction we had never considered before.  

     But, if our main objective is to defend a fixed position, no amount of evidence will ever be able to move us in any new direction at all.  We will be stuck.  But, at least in our own minds, we will always be right.

3.  You aren’t willing to stand alone.

     This is probably the most difficult block of all.  We are social creatures.  No man is an island.  It feels good to be part of the gang, to look like others do, think like others do, and to fit in.  Sometimes though we get the idea that if we had a difference in opinion or a different idea about how things worked than our friends and family did, we would be ostracized.  In this thinking, we may not be too far off base.  Can you think of an idea that you had, or a time you were intrigued by another type of group or idea, and were immediately cut down by those around you?  ‘Are you kidding me? Those people are nuts..or...Why would you want to try that?’ Sometimes it comes down to: Are you with us, or are you with them. 

     There are some who will never be able to tap into their true brilliance because of their deeper need to be loved and accepted.  The risk of losing a friend or losing being thought of a certain way by the group is too threatening.  

      Recently there have been several things that have just felt way off base to me, things that the people around me were highly supportive of.  One was the health care bill- health care for everyone.  But, it didn't seem too many people were thinking about the fact that our health care system is archaic and filled with greed, corruption and lies.  Over 150,000 people die a year from drugs that have been 'proven' safe and effective by the FDA.  People are facing financial ruin because of outrageous hospital bills- and these are people that pay their insurance bills! Do we really want this for everyone?  You've got to be kidding me.  I do understand that on the surface it sounds good and appropriate, that everyone will be taken care of, but the truth is, many of the people in the system now are not being taken care of.  

It's the same thing with education.  What, test scores are dropping?  Kids are dropping out in record numbers? Record violence? Well, let's do much, much more of the same.  That should take care of it. And, while I did like the energy and the hope that came with the Obama election, I could just never quite fully board the Obama train.  People then may assume that I was for the other side, but, as I am seeing it more and more, there is no other side.  There is one party and that is the government party.  And of course, none of this fits into the current obsessive thought that we create our reality and we don't dare say anything negative because we will automatically create it.  We have even managed to turn a spiritual law into a superficial dose of magical thinking, preventing us again from doing real thinking.  While the law of attraction is a law, and, taken into a deeper space of practice and awareness, is Truth, it's not the only law there is.  

       As children, before we were taught by those around us what we should be thinking, we loved to explore the environment around us and ask questions, loved to find out what was really going on, without being afraid what anyone thought, or of being wrong.  We were in it for the real stuff; to discover and grow, and find the truth.  Maybe we were wiser than we thought, on some level we must have known that in the end it was the truth that would set us free.