March 26, 2020
WISE IGNORANCE
I enjoy being ignorant. I believe that the state of happy ignorance should be cultivated, particularly in our age of information overload. For example, I searched for "celebrities" in Google images and took a screen shot of the first group of responses:
I'm happy to say I believe I know the identity of only three of them, the third from the left on top, the first full picture on the left of the bottom row and the one above him, all from a previous era, I think.
To my regret, I recognized six, possibly seven of the year 2018 world leaders shown below. I will have to work to reduce my interaction with this branch of the world of entertainment.
I think I recognized four, maybe five, of those on the first page of the response to "famous contemporary athletes."
Mind you, I'm not advocating a return to the Dark Ages. But in our time, I think the average person is way overloaded with useless bits of information and the healthiest tactic is to filter it out - which mean developing a perverse pride in not knowing the things most people know. I get a little tingle of pleasure when I find out I do not know something. Wikipedia has an interesting article on information overload. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_overload/
For amusement, you might want to look a list purporting to show the 200 most famous people of all time. Ridiculous but entertaining. https://www.listchallenges.com/200-most-famous-people-of-all-time/
On the other hand, it is worth cultivating knowledge of people most people don't know (such as Stanislaw Lem) and lesser known skills such as how to peel garlic, how to sew, how to clean a bathroom, how to repair things, how to pay attention, how to meditate, how to do nothing, and how to do without. Also, when to stop.
END
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