The Weight of Knowing—and the Illusion of Blissful Ignorance


 I remember a time when I lived in Nigeria, watching the U.S. elections from afar. When Hillary Clinton lost, I cried. It felt like the world had made the wrong choice, and something deeply symbolic had been shattered. I mourned her loss with sincerity, though I had never set foot in America.

Years later, after moving to Canada and beginning to understand the nuances of North American politics—its history, its media machinery, its contradictions—I looked back at that moment and laughed. Not because it was foolish to care, but because I realized how little I truly knew. I cried from a place of idealism, shaped by narratives I hadn’t learned to question.

That memory haunts me, not because I felt too much, but because I understood too little.

Today, after years of reading, watching, questioning, and re-evaluating, I sometimes wonder: *Is all this knowledge necessary?* The more I know, the more disillusioned I become. Complexity replaces clarity. Heroes become flawed. Systems once revered now appear compromised. In those moments, the phrase *“ignorance is bliss”* whispers like a tempting lie dressed in comfort.

But then I remember myself crying over an election I didn't understand, and I realize: ignorance may feel like bliss—but it is borrowed bliss, and it comes at a cost. It blinds us to manipulation, robs us of agency, and turns our convictions into tools for someone else’s agenda.

Knowledge isn’t always comforting. In fact, it rarely is. But it is grounding. It gives weight to our opinions and maturity to our emotions. It replaces blind loyalty with informed discernment. And even when it breaks the illusions we once clung to, it builds something stronger: truth, complexity, and wisdom.

So no—I don’t regret learning. I don’t regret seeing more clearly, even if the view is harder to bear. Because a society of people who know better, ask more, and feel deeply with understanding, is the only kind of society worth building.

Ignorance may offer peace. But knowledge offers freedom. Do you want peace or freedom? 


Comments

  1. Chibyk!May 9, 2025 at 9:54 AM

    Another pizza masterpiece. Keep churning them out brev. Love this.

    ReplyDelete

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