Ignorance is Bliss

Why is ignorance eventually not blissful?

Two reasons.

First, life is random when one is ignorant. Simple people that do not think (because that is what they are) cannot control anything. Because they cannot control their mind and ideas, they cannot control life. If someone close to them dies tragically, their mind cannot conceptualize the difficulty any better than a pig. Because of this, their thoughts and their emotions are so disparate that life becomes unmanageable. If one cannot tell the difference between thoughts and emotions or if one cannot properly define what emotion is, feelings and events cannot be controlled. This is why when a rural spouse dies, the other follows. This is why there is so much addictive behavior. Addictions and substance abuse are simply a compensation for a lack of complex mind-driven coping strategies. If I think about death early on in life and I wrap my thoughts around it, this may show as depression; but it is also a learned strategy later in life when confronted with it. With this said, not all simple, ignorant people will confront tragedy. They might get lucky. It's not the majority, but, in fact, because life for them is random, there is a chance that they could lead a charmed life. Even if this happens, though, there is the question of how enjoyable animal satisfactions truly are.

One of the interesting components of the simple, random thoughtless life is that it cannot be seen by the ones living it. Without controlled thoughts, life itself as a concept is beyond a simple, animal interpretation. Simple people are so simple that they cannot see their simplicity. It's a weird problem.

Secondly, the definition of animal satisfaction has a profound effect on the notion of human happiness. The question is: are short-term satisfactions even happiness at all? The country simpleton that leads the same unproductive life day after day and never encounters difficulty (luck) may never actually be happy. If happiness is not merely a short-term emotion, if it is a complex combination of social and work life, of long-term "work," the case can be made that ignorant people are actually so miserable and ignorant that they don't know the difference and can't express their condition. Their random and grinding subconscious life provides for them no outlet other than substance and behavior abuse. Amidst this drudgery there is no time or energy for a proper display of this misery. When Mill says the satisfied pig life is not worth living he means animal satisfaction. He means that man's life is predestined to be one of ideas and complexity and only by fulfilling these will he attain any sort of real happiness. For a man merely to have shelter and food and family (yes I said family) is not appealing to his intellectual life long-term and on an authentic level. A man must create a true social and work life. What I'm really saying is that there is a reward for animal satisfaction and it appeals to short-term random expectations; it is, in fact, short bursts of pleasing sensations, in the same way as deriving pleasure from crack cocaine. The reward for the life of the mind is a long-term esteem-based happiness. It does not provide everything that a man needs, but without it man is lost. This is why educated people have the potential for true happiness, though it is rarely achieved, but uneducated ones live a life so random and misdirected that they can only arrive at some semblance of esteem by pure accident, if ever.

Note: When I write "work" I do not mean tilling the fields. I mean creating great ideas and art.