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Take My Advice - Be Ignorant

6/20/2012

2 Comments

 
I have been thinking about ignorance lately.  There is just so damn much of it.  If ignorance is bliss there are a lot of people living in "...the merry old land of Oz."  But that is a low quality ignorance - the kind that breeds unfounded fear, prejudice, intolerance, superstition, a dopey Homer Simpson-like delirium of pseudo happiness, and just about anything with the prefix 'anti'.  Then there is high quality ignorance - the kind that "prepares the mind for learning".  It is knowing that you don't know and desiring to fill the gap.  Examples of people who tend to exhibit a penchant for high quality ingnorance:  scientists, teachers, writers, artists in general, small children.  As for low quality ignorance we have only to look to: Fox News, politicians, clerics, economists and teenagers.  

My friend over at Whatifandwhynot prompted me to think about advice.  I have certainly given and received my share of advice.  For my part the good advice mostly fell by the wayside.  The bad advice?  It stuck like a sucker fish on the belly of a whale.  As for the advice I've given, it was doled out in buckets full of ignorant rubbish.  I was one of those annoying people with the hubris (just for you a) to think not only do I know all I need know, I also know all you need to know...think jackass and you'll be right.  But I have reformed.  These days I try to keep my own counsel, letting people learn their own lessons in their own ways.  As for the ignorance, I mostly hover between low and high quality, probably a kind of mediocre ignorance.  I know that I don't know and am very confused by what I know.  So any advice from me should come with an alert level 'blue' - suspect, possibly dangerous and certainly subversive.

That said I leave you with this bit of timeless advice from Sydney Friedman, "Ladies and Gentlemen take my advice, pull down your pants and slide on the ice." 

That's all I have for now.

2 Comments
ann link
6/21/2012 04:15:37 am

i need all the subversive advice i can get...

Reply
Jennifer Hancock link
6/24/2012 03:10:31 am

Truly excellent advice - though - not sure I want to slide on ice with a bare bottom. Youch!

Reply



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