[NetBehaviour] If Ignorance is Bliss, What Should Intellectuals Do?

[marc garrett]

Found this on a blog & liked it :-)

wishing all well.

marc


If Ignorance is Bliss, What Should Intellectuals Do?
http://tinyurl.com/37lco5

I've been warned that the intellectual's life is somewhat disheartening 
because we know too much. We are too aware of the flaws in life that 
living loses its idealistic magic. For example, long-term atheists will 
always have trouble ducking their heads under the water of spiritual 
awakening--we are too rational.

Since ignorance is indeed bliss, but willful ignorance is unheard of, 
what is the intellectual to do?

I suggest complete acceptance of the dirty truth. When our expectations 
of life do not exceed its capacity, we will hopefully get the same 
comforts of the person in fantasy-land.

So, here are some admissions. Get ready to "suck it up" as they say:

- Nobody will ever understand you completely.
- You can only speak for yourself.
- There will always be a major distortion between what you know, what 
you will be able to communicate, and what people will then comprehend.
 

- There is no such thing as perfect trust.
- Life does have no intrinsic meaning.
- Much of my life is directed by things preceding me and therefore out 
of my control.
- Your mind will always be polluted by public discourse (superego*).
- We impact everything, but yet we are often powerless to control.
- Discursive opinion will often not match reality.
- Perspectives and living are ephemeral and temporary.
- There is no perfect truth (save for maybe Math)
- You will always be irrational.
- Your emotions will always interfere with your sense of truth.
- Life is composed of layers of visible and invisible cliche's and story 
lines
- We are ultimately subject to forces beyond us, natural selection, laws 
of accelerating returns, etc.
- There is no perfect break from some vaguely deterministic path.
- What ppl tell you or how others view you will inevitbly affect you.
- No event or action is completely beneficial.
- You will always be an agent of some evil.
- You will never be beyond reproach.
- You will be the vehicle of stupid actions that are equally as inane as 
the sins of others
- You will always have bias.
- Outside of science, nobody knows. like politics. etc.
- We will always have to act on incomplete knowledge.
- There is no absolutely good action
- You will never be able to do precisely what you want to do
- There is no true home
- You can never be truly authentic
- There will always be so much more beyond your awareness.
- Not everything is possible
- You will always be part of an existing process
- You can never truly break from the trajectory, maybe nudge it around, 
but that'll ultimately be part of that trajectory
- Your weaknesses will always be betrayed by your actions at some point
- You will always be in some nature fake
- No event or meal or situation or conversation will be completely 
satisfactory
- Nothing will every be completely satisfactory
- You will never be completely comfortable
- Something will always be itchy
- The gravity of life will always be subject to potential subjection of 
risk to utter, stupid, and simple anniilation. Like a car accident.
- You will never have total control
- You won't be able to win them all. Someone will always hate you no 
matter what.
- There is no perfect art
- There are other lives within you that will carry on their own
- You won't ever be beyond your own embarassment.
- You will never do the optimal thing
- There is no true external should.
- There will always be a kryptonite.
- You cannot escape your emotions.
- You cannot forget the past.
- Something will always haunt you.
- Nobody is beyond temptation
- Knowing and doing will always be different

Added 4/11/04:
- You won't ever completely understand yourself or others.
- Some things you will never be able to get over.
- You will never rid the world of evil and cruelty
- You will never reach your full potential

Added 4/12/04
- You will always be subject to the needs of your containing vehicles: 
physical body, relationships, family, house, nation, car, etc..
- Because of the nature of time, everything that persists requires 
maintenence.

I wonder, though, what this whole list-making process says about me and 
my current state.

My form of blogging, with its emotionally-charged, intellectual stabs 
into the air, is just a more complicated form of self-exposure.