Ignorance is Bliss

A common phrase used by many is the idea that “ignorance is bliss”. However, I would like to add onto this idea and propose that “bliss is ignorant”. To me, we as individuals should not seek bliss necessarily but rather peace. Is there a particular difference between the two? Perhaps, there isn’t and perhaps there is. Words are limited in their conveyance of emotion and feeling; the same words may have different interpretations for different people. However, to me peace and bliss are different. To be blissful is to relish the moment, to think of no else other than the amount of joy you are currently experiencing. Peace is not so fleeting. Peace has no specific feeling, it is simply the state of being calm. 

Ultimately, pain is unavoidable but suffering is optional. While happiness chooses to forget the pain completely to ignore the suffering, peace remains conscious of pain but does not suffer.  For example, death is a concept to be feared, yet though individuals all know that their death is inevitable not all of them despair. In happiness and in moments of joy, death is forgotten. Only when that addictive sense of pleasure is gone, that we begin to realise the darkness of both our lives and the world around us. Death is just one of many pains which we are forced to experience through living. Every single person who existed no doubt felt some form of pain, whether it was emotional or physical. Interestingly, pain is likely a shared experience: there is a high probability that any pain you have felt has not escaped beyond the bounds of others' understanding. However, there is no doubt that how one responds to pain is infinitely different. To be at peace is to continually remind oneself of issues yet not let it ruin one’s life. 

Perhaps the concept of doom scrolling would be a more modern example of ignorance. Though you may argue that information is still being absorbed and presented through this form of social media, much of it is simply forgotten. In fact the entire purpose of doom scrolling is to achieve bliss through ignorance. We seek to distance ourselves from reality and to simply forget about much of the issues which permeate through our minds. Through that we achieve bliss. It is simply emptiness: a state of feeling nothing. To be blissful is to experience neither happiness nor suffering.  

Whether the idea I am trying to portray is correct or not is meaningless. “Correctness” is and should not be based on the majority. We seek our own answers to questions which fulfill us, in the same way we choose our direction in life. Of course, there are moments where we may share the same answers as others or we may belong, though that is not to say one is giving up one’s individuality and conforming to a collective, it is simply the direction one wishes to go. Buddha once said “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense”. There is no issue with having a contrary opinion or a popular one so long as you truly believe in it through every fibre of your being. After all, one of the many purposes of philosophy, in my opinion, is the pursuit of individual questions and individual answers.