Ignorance, Knowledge, and Bubbles
By Juliet Lam on 01/29/16
Tagged: the-homework-life the-homework-life-thought
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You are cut off from the world. But you know people, don't you? Maybe you've got hundreds of contacts on a device of yours, or maybe just one. But no matter what, you've got access to the world. And humans know that. That's why they think that they've got open minds. That they know a lot, that we know almost everything, especially because of modern technology. But simultaneously, we know that we don't. We know that we don't know everything. We can't be everywhere in the world, we can't experience everything, we can't know everything. The thing is, we don't like being inferior. We cut ourselves off from the world. We live in our own perfect bubbles that extend as far as the things we care about, as much as we can imagine. The only time we can truly acknowledge the world is when we discard those filters around our brain. But the world is beautiful inside, like pure water compared to poison. Why should we ever take off those filters, pop our bubbles?
I am a citizen of the extremely privileged. However, these privileges are often taken for granted, because my whole life has been nothing but luxury. I live in a bubble- I can't imagine what people are going through right now in, say, the civil war in Syria. I can't relate, unless I go through that sort of experience. Until then, I cannot truly care about how those people are feeling, no matter how much I protest that I do care about those people. I could argue, "People are people are people. I care about them because I'm one of them." Words are cheap, deeds are gold. What have I done to help?
I'm living somewhere in the top percentages of the wealthiest people on our planet Earth. And no, I haven't done anything to help out. See, I sympathize that they've got to go through all of that hardship, but to be honest, I don't care, as much as I try to. I'm totally ignorant as to what they're going through. If somebody dropped me there, I might understand. My perspective of the world would shift. Everything changes how we view others, events and such. But the bubble stays intact. When something has gone majorly wrong in someone's life, that bubble can contract and grow firm. That's the point where we care about ourselves only. The bubble restricts us from knowing about the world around us. We're ignorant, nothing but ignorant creatures, yet we think that we know. That's our problem. We think too much. I'm afraid that I can't say the same thing as the knowing.
While we may feel close to friends or family that live far away through our modern, handy little devices, seeing and hearing, our two very helpful senses, aren't enough to bring those people to us. (And thank God for that- Some places would be stuffed with people.) How this has to do with bubbles, ignorance and knowledge is this- Our bubbles stretch to those people, and though we know they aren't there, we ignore that knowledge. Nobody likes being duped. Anyhow, it feels better knowing that you know that those people are doing fine and dandy, though you aren't seeing them in person. But it's comforting to hear news, however fake, to explain things.
Humans have an overwhelming need to gather things. Much of the time, that something is knowledge. Knowledge, those dangerous, fantastical ideas that can be used as tools or for reference or for the fun and secrecy of knowing things that others don't. But a lot of the time, we don't focus on what's important, or we get bad info. But a lot of the time, we don't really care. We think, "OK, we've got the info." That's all. We want real answers, but sometimes it's just easier to ignore the fact that the information could potentially be rotten. Bad. Incorrect. Sometimes it's so much easier to ignore the ugly parts of life that is sometimes heard on the news, and think, "The news is always dramatized," or "Oh, well, that's happening on the other side of the Earth," or "That's still in the news?" before forgetting it an hour later. We're cut off from the world because we ignore it, we don't care enough to be able to put ourselves into their shoes, to know what they're going through. I can't say what I think knowledge is, but I've got an idea on how to acquire it. I think I may have a way to break through those bubbles, how to ignore ignorance, but it's very tough, though it may look easy on a screen. There are three different ways to put it: It's all about mindset; keep an open mind; think like a child. Expect the impossible. Because if you have an open mind, you'll start to notice that a lot more than you'd expect can happen.