This age is an age of chaos and chances are the coming ages are not going to be any better psychologically speaking. Just for a moment look around yourself. People are confused, they are bored, they are absolutely directionless. They are literally robots walking here and there without any purpose. Scientific revelations without a doubt have made all of us skeptics. Even the most ardent of believers have started to doubt their values. Being skeptical isn’t a wrong thing altogether but, we must have something to believe in.
Greek mythology made it pretty clear that truth and falsity did not matter. What really mattered was the story. They believed in stories because they wanted something meaningful to believe in. They were never after the authenticity of these stories. They were ignorant and their ignorance was a blessing.
The same goes for our ancestors. At least our ancestors believed in God because they were ignorant, they didn’t have enough knowledge to question the morals or values that they believed in, and inevitably they had some inherent purpose in their lives which made their lives worth living. They unlike us were never faced with the existential crises. Now look at us, we don’t believe in anything anymore. Doubtless, the modern Man is not frightened by God and the supernatural anymore but that hasn’t done anything better for him as the fear of God has been replaced by the fear of the unknown.
For modern men, this universe is a meaningless void and they are isolated insignificant entities. Carl Jung was of the view that we have conquered the supernatural but are engulfed by meaninglessness. Happiness or peace of mind is nowhere to be found courtesy of these loads and loads of knowledge. People have the right to say that Knowledge is light, knowledge is power but honestly, I would still prefer to be ignorant. Maybe that’s the message in “The Story of Good Brahmin” by Voltaire, Ignorance is bliss. Let us cite some examples from Literature.
Sisyphus suffered because he knew the secrets of the gods. Oedipus suffered only because of his undying love for knowledge. His tragedy occurs only because he tries to unfold the mystery that he could have well left alone. The root of Santiago’s sufferings is his desire to sail into unfamiliar territories.
The undying love for knowledge hurled Adam and Eve straight into the abyss of hopelessness. They tasted the fruit from the tree of knowledge and they were inescapably doomed. The story of Adam and Eve warns us that in order to gain knowledge one must be ready to pay the price and sometimes it is too costly. The pursuit of knowledge is a pretty noble thing but, we must acknowledge the fact that knowledge breeds suffering and the more you know, the more you suffer. Knowledge grown full rarely dies childless. It always gives birth to a monster that haunts us for fun. Knowledge unfortunately is a curse.
