I don’t think ‘knowing’ is always a blessing. If you are ignorant, you don’t have responsibility. But if you know, you can’t shy away from shouldering responsibility. And if you shy away from responsibility knowing fully well that you have to be there, guilt will come trying to strangle your mind to insanity. Sometime, therefore, I wonder if it’s even more blessed to be insane. Because if one is insane one never knows the ‘painful’ side of life… that suffering which comes through responsibility. A person who is insane never knows suffering nor joy. For him life just is.
Was it not because Alyosha had ‘known’ so much that the Father said he would never be a happy man? ( in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Karamazov Brothers) It’s not just with great power that great responsibility comes, but it’s with great knowledge too that great responsibility comes. And somehow, I fear, that the challenge that comes from within is greater than the challenge that comes from without. The angst that impinges upon one’s soul as one ‘knows’ the reality in greater precision. Ah! But the angst within swells because of the pressure applied from without.
Had I been a Martin Heidegger I would have patted my own back, told myself to be strong, and move to and face death head on. Had I been a Carl Sagan I might have looked up to the stars to send aliens to come and metamorphose me to be able to face the future. But I am more like Immanuel Kant… more like Socrates… more like Paul. Oh yes, I know Jesus, yet I must say I ‘know’ him not. When I KNOW Him I shall never be fearful of being responsible. Till then I pray and wait.
Was it not because Alyosha had ‘known’ so much that the Father said he would never be a happy man? ( in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Karamazov Brothers) It’s not just with great power that great responsibility comes, but it’s with great knowledge too that great responsibility comes. And somehow, I fear, that the challenge that comes from within is greater than the challenge that comes from without. The angst that impinges upon one’s soul as one ‘knows’ the reality in greater precision. Ah! But the angst within swells because of the pressure applied from without.
Had I been a Martin Heidegger I would have patted my own back, told myself to be strong, and move to and face death head on. Had I been a Carl Sagan I might have looked up to the stars to send aliens to come and metamorphose me to be able to face the future. But I am more like Immanuel Kant… more like Socrates… more like Paul. Oh yes, I know Jesus, yet I must say I ‘know’ him not. When I KNOW Him I shall never be fearful of being responsible. Till then I pray and wait.
Ignorance is Bliss they say and therefore Knowing can lead to fear.( Hmm may be I never know right now that I have some terminal illness... Yet to know will lose every motivation life...)
ReplyDeleteBut if that Knowing leads to Love , Love that Gives freedom,love that give me hope, love that endure me through crisis, I'd rather know than be ignorant. That knowing comes only in knowing my Creator.