Ignorance vs illiteracy

There is "uneducated" and there are the "ignorant".

By today's standards most people from the past, with few exceptions are considered uneducated.

I remember as a child lamenting how we were born in the wrong age. 

All the great discoveries were behind us. 

The "low hanging" fruit of gravity and Isaac Newtons falling apple seemed like a quick path to fame. Sadly all the low hanging, earth-shattering discoveries were over and the progress of science had all but halted. 

This was how I saw it as a child. 

The truth was so far from this that I now realise that they were formed by my childhood, uninformed thoughts and experiences. 

We are so naive and stupid at that age, yet the rest of our lives are literally moulded by the stupidity of youth. 

My little grandchildren have a working knowledge of science and a rudimentary understanding of all the most complex ideas that I currently have. They will in their lives expand on this and look back at this time someday, to realise that their Nana lived in uneducated ignorance. 

The world is hurtling towards an unknowable future at an increasing speed. The number of discoveries rises exponentially every minute of the day. 

Most of these are academic, and will not filter through to the man in the trenches but every so often the stars align and all the building blocks come together in a breakthrough that reaches every person and changes the way we work and play. 

The obvious ones are television, aeroplanes, computers, guns and such.

I began by comparing literacy with ignorance. 

Education leads to literacy. 

Not in the sense of being "lettered" but literacy in the form of the quest for knowledge. This has always existed but in our era, the body of knowledge we have access to is too huge to be knowable and the rate at which it grows makes it impossible for the seeker to ever absorb more than the smallest fraction of what is on the menu. So we nibble here and there and ignore the rest in the hope that what we know is enough to make sense of our lives and the world around us.

Many choose to go the other way.

They cling to some dogma, old or new and turn their backs to the huge body of knowledge. 

They believe that their narrow view is the only one. 

They cultivate tunnel vision to block out any facts that contradict their worldview. 

They too claim to seek knowledge but they have closed their eyes to all that contradicts the principles they have sworn to uphold. 

This in my opinion is the true definition of ignorance in the present day.

There is however merit in this form of "group delusion".

One forms lifelong bonds with other like-minded people and join a political party,  society,  protest or even religion.

Within that sanctified space one is no longer alone.

The world makes sense and their lives have a purpose.

The open-minded person who seeks knowledge for the sake of knowledge will invariably find himself alone in the dark. 

Not belonging, and not ever knowing his purpose. 

Life to the true seeker is a mystery and pointless. 

At the end of his journey even if he uncovers some great truth, it's still a useless pointless waste of his life force.

𝓜 𝓟𝓪𝓻𝓪𝓴

Sep 2021