Knowledge & Ignorance…

After 20 plus years of education, I do not know what I have gained. It is definitely not wisdom (which supposedly is an ultimate goal of life) or intelligence (which supposedly helps one make less mistakes). Somewhere lower in the order lies knowledge: defined in many ways as below:

– noun

1. acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles, as from study or investigation; general erudition: knowledge of many things;

2. familiarity or conversance, as with a particular subject or branch of learning;

3. acquaintance or familiarity gained by sight, experience, or report;

4. the fact or state of knowing; the perception of fact or truth; clear and certain mental apprehension;

5. awareness, as of a fact or circumstance;

6. something that is or may be known; information;

7. the body of truths or facts accumulated in the course of time;

8. the sum of what is known;

– adjective

9. creating, involving, using, or disseminating special knowledge or information;

— Idiom

10. to one’s knowledge, according to the information available to one;

However, I some why cannot relate to any of these. I am yet to be acquainted with a lot of truths & facts & I find this process of getting acquainted itself a bit tiring. Neither can I claim perfect conversance in any subject nor are my experiences enough to attain familiarity with any concept. Thus, I cannot claim to be in a state of knowing or possess information that is exclusive. So am I knowledgable? My simple definition (of course, condensed from the above) tells me that knowledge is knowing or what one knows. What do I know?

The American Proverb “Ignorance is Bliss” has always intrigued me. Can not knowing be better than knowing? Leaving out the situations of turmoil when not knowing is definitely an advantage, I am examining not knowing in regular day-to-day life. I see a child work with an empty cardboard box for well over an hour – its parent, an adult came by and put the box aside, obviously aided by the knowledge that the box had served its purpose; the child’s bliss was destroyed with knowledge. A photographer was taking painful efforts to get his angles, light composition & focus perfect in the garden for long; I walked past knowing that the effort is not efficient, considering the garden will remain at a similar state for a while, if not for ever.

Obviously, with knowledge one thinks about biases; does knowledge make one biased? Well it does, inevitably, but it might be thought that some biases are good whereas, some not good. Once again, knowledge fails to provide a clear answer leading to confusion.

Another aspect of knowledge is perception. Is there a free perception (meaning, to look at an object/a person/a situation at that moment, without attaching past, present or future information) or do we tend to always look through coloured glasses? Does knowledge enhance perception or does it diminish perception by guiding it with information?

If I am performing poorly in the acquisition of knowledge, how do I proceed to become intelligent & acquire wisdom? Are those never to happen in my life time?

Questions like these are easy to ask but have disturbing answers. They put things in perspective (of course aided by information) & destroy bliss – one is forced to sit back & think what s/he is doing. Then it dawns that this particular knowledge that enables one to think about this issue, has by itself destroyed some amount of bliss that one was living in.

Can one say no to knowledge acquisition? Can we live life day-by-day without acquiring knowledge? Is that a purposeful life?

 

–noun

1.	acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles, as from study or investigation; general erudition: knowledge of many things.

2.	familiarity or conversance, as with a particular subject or branch of learning: A knowledge of accounting was necessary for the job.

3.	acquaintance or familiarity gained by sight, experience, or report: a knowledge of human nature.

4.	the fact or state of knowing; the perception of fact or truth; clear and certain mental apprehension.

5.	awareness, as of a fact or circumstance: He had knowledge of her good fortune.

6.	something that is or may be known; information: He sought knowledge of her activities.

7.	the body of truths or facts accumulated in the course of time.

8.	the sum of what is known: Knowledge of the true situation is limited.