Ignorance is Bliss

I thank in advance whatever hapless soul the Norns have fated to take up this debate opposite me. Perhaps no-one will. I don't know yet, and that fact causes me a certain degree of trepidation. I do put effort into these debates, after all, and it would be most disappointing if after my work nobody thought this debate worth their time.If I knew in advance that no-one wanted to debate this with me, I could avoid making it in the first place, sparing myself a great deal of disappointment later on and a certain amount of paranoia in the present.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Ignorance, (a word which here means "to be tragically unaware of some fact pertinent to your situation" http://dictionary.reference.com... ) is most DEFINITELY not bliss, a fact which can be easily deduced. Allow me to present three situations which will demonstrate this.1. Your "indigenous"* tour bus breaks down whilst on the "road"* between Caxito, Angola and Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. You and all the other passengers are forced to disembark and proceed on foot; and while the natives are accustomed to passing lightly through the forest without attracting the attention of large native-eating carnivores, you are not. You bumble and thrash through the underbrush, causing a great deal of noise; and even you realise that this is hardly an ideal situation.You begin to fear for your life, under the false impression that lions might jump out at you from behind any tree. This laughable misconception you gained from your misspent childhood, where your primary extra-curricular activity was watching re-runs of old George of the Jungle cartoons. You become quite panicked at the thought of being gobbled alive by fierce tawny predators, and spend the last terrified hours of your life running blindly through the jungle.If you had only known that lions live mainly on the savannah, and that you had more to fear from the flesh-eating bacteria in the water you just drank, you could have avoided spending your final moments in dread and despair. Ignorance was not bliss in this case. *(a word which here means "broken down and unreliable.")2. You are a honest international arms dealer with a regrettable habit of selling harmless nuclear secrets to Third World nations. Because you are jealous of your privacy, and do not wish to be disturbed by masses of your fans seeking autographs and that sort of thing, you maintain communications with your clients via a system of drop points and hidden letterboxes. It is while you are surreptitiously checking one of these that you notice a large man in shades taking a picture of the shrubbery you are emerging from; and by reason of coincidence, you. It is regrettable that you are unaware that that man really is Hermann Grusenvater, termnial tourist, and not a government agent as you think. If you knew, you probably would not fly into a paranoid rage, leap from the bushes, stab the man fifteen times overhand just below the clavicle, and steal his camera; you would also have most likely not turn to run from this crime and land in the waiting arms of an understandably upset policeman, and by due process of law (a phrase which here means "A S&W 45 caliber and an eight-pound nightstick, duly wielded") a life sentence in a maximum security prison. Ignorance betrays you in this case, and most certainly is not bliss for you.3. You were the inoffensive harmless kindly executive head of a major energy company; one so famous, I can only allude to it here as beginning with the letter "E" and ending with "-ron." You lived with the sad suspicion that your company was intrinsically corrupt, but did not have any idea who could be responsible for the situation. You had no idea, for instance, why corporate memos instructing the company accountants to be more creative in recording liabilities kept ending up on your desk, nor why your name was usually appended. You did not know why every time you asked for a file more than two days old, your secretary reported that it had been carelessly destroyed. You did not know why everyone in your office acted so nervous when a police car drove by - but you suspected there was something wrong, and it saddened your entire life.If only you knew that there was a perfectly legitimate explanation for all this, and that you had no reason at all to be worried. You could have enjoyed your forty-foot yacht in peace of mind, knowing all was well. Your ignorance of the true situation caused you untold emotional turmoil, undue ulcers, and an early grave; all because you didn't know your employees were playful ex-con practical jokers.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~It is indeed a sad world. I am, in fact, totally unaware of anything worth living for, any unspoilt beauty left in this earth, any harmony among men. As far as I know, this world is full of only sadness, darkness, and despair; ours being an unfair existence eked out among the ashes of what might have been.My girlfriend left me, my family dumped me in this nursing home (with Nazi attendants whom I am convinced use the inpatients as experimental subjects in their tests of human endurance), and I lost that Mafia game. All is gloomy, as far as I can see.If only I knew of anything happy, or kind, or wonderful; even if it only happened to someone else, it would make my life better to know about it - but no, I'm stuck here in my wheelchair wishing this apartment (a word which here means "a 4x8 cell without running water in which people stick their aged relatives when they wish to forget about them") were a little less dark. If there is anything worth knowing out there, my ignorance certainly isn't bliss for me.Ignorance is not bliss. I used to think it was, but that was back when I was young and knew everything. Now that I am old and ignorant, I am simply miserable.To my opponent, then; if he even exists.-C.