Yet again, I was binge watching videos on YouTube when I came across this video of the Q & A round of Miss World, 2000, the year Priyanka Chopra became Miss World. Out of all the questions, this one caught my fancy. If Ignorance is bliss, why do people seek knowledge? The question really intrigued me. It got me thinking of how ignorance can indeed be blissful, and yet seeking knowledge still seems the right way of life.

To explore this, I started thinking of why is ignorance blissful? The explanation I could come up with is that ignorance can feel blissful because you are not aware of the wrongs happening. However, not being aware cannot stop the wrong from happening. In fact, it can prove to be more detrimental to the person. The best example of this is our own body. Our body lets us know of any damage through “pain”. Pain is a signal from our body to make us aware of the damage so that we try fixing it. Yes, pain may take away bliss from the moment, but it saves from further damage. This applies to every problem. Not being aware of the problem will keep us from being tensed, but it does not mean the problem does not exist. Instead, it will keep you from solving it, and thus, the problem may become bigger.

But there is more to the journey of seeking knowledge than just awareness. Let’s look at this metaphorically.

Imagine standing at a place, ahead of which, lies a road. The place where you are standing is very comfortable. The road, on the other end, does not look easy to travel upon. You have a choice to remain at that comfortable place or explore the road. You can ignore it because the road is difficult to travel on and choose to remain in that comfortable place or you could be curious as to where the road leads to and decide to explore it. The journey of knowledge starts with curiosity and a determination to satisfy it. On your way, you will face problems (or questions). As you start finding solutions, you will face problems. But now, you will have learned the art of finding solutions. At the end of the journey, you will come back to the same place where you started from, you will still be in the same world. But the world will no longer be the same for you. You will have a perspective now, which will change the way you look at things. You will now be able to see beauty (For instance, only if you understand art, you will be able to appreciate it). You will now be able to identify problems and possibly fix it. Now, you can even see many other roads and choose to explore them. Every journey would give you a different perspective, enabling you to make the world a better place. And yet, there will always be roads to explore as knowledge is never ending.

What do you choose – bliss in ignorance or wisdom in knowledge?