Ignorance Deprives People of Freedom-Daily Meditation 8.7.23
Today’s Quotation:
Ignorance deprives people of freedom because they do not know the alternatives. It is impossible to choose to do what one has never “heard of.”-
Ralph B. Perry
Today’s Meditation:
I’ve been fighting ignorance my whole life, my own and other people’s. I don’t like not knowing things in my life, so I do my best to learn everything I can about almost everything. I realize that what I know is less than one drop of water in an ocean relative to all there is to know, but I do what I can to minimize my ignorance. As a teacher, I try my best to help other people work past their ignorance and embrace knowledge, to learn things important to them so they won’t miss out on things they don’t know about.
Many people view ignorance as willful, and while there is such a thing as willful ignorance–choosing not to learn about a specific topic–we often don’t know about things because we don’t know that we should know about them. If I’ve never heard of something, how do I know I want to learn about it? This is why it’s important always to stay alert and to pay attention to those things that are important to us in our lives so that we can know more about things that we really do need to know about.
I don’t want to be ignorant because my life will be much less wealthy and fulfilling if I am. I can help others much less when what I don’t know is more than what I do know. My ignorance is curable, but it does take some effort on my part to be aware of what I’m ignorant of and then some more effort learning those things I need to know to overcome my ignorance. There is much to learn and understand on this planet, and while I’ll never know it all, I can do my best not to be ignorant of many things.
One of the things that life requires of us if we’re to make the most of it is constant learning, and after we’ve learned a lot, constant teaching. I don’t want to make silly mistakes and miss out on important things because I don’t know about them, and I teach others what I can because I don’t want them to miss out, either. After all, I’ve lost much of my ignorance due to the teachings of others, so it’s good to return the favor.
Questions to consider:
What do you see as some of the negative impacts of ignorance?
Why do so many people refuse to acknowledge their ignorance or even show pride?
How might we help ourselves by working to diminish our ignorance?
For further thought:
The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the world’s end, the master calls a butterfly.-
Richard Bach
If you missed our last Daily Meditation, it is here.
