My maid , today morning , saw me making coffee , for one of my kids , and asked me what that black powdery "tea thing" was .
That said , a few days ago , her daughter , a precocious ten year old , heard some conversation , in queen's language (laced with unparliamentary words ) between the two offsprings of mine and wished to know , why were the "didis" talking "like that" .
Now , that would be ignorance , or as Roald Dahl would put it "lack of schooling".
What name would one give to admission of total , blank , "un-knowledge" about some punk lyrics "rapping" away into one's cochlea . Utter gibberish ! Not for everyone though . Not only is it lip-synched , but also claimed by dreamy-eyed listeners to be "oh-so -sublime "
There are several chocolate faced guys on the silvery frontages of TV, ipads , who fight mythical sea monsters , and wage seriously violent wars in remote galaxies , who one is totally unfamiliar with .
Then there is this tip of the iceberg syndrome . Wherein , you familiarise yourself with some piece of remote history (well-documented , the wikipedia reassures you) only to discover several layers and branches , and bylanes to that piece of your (or someone else's) hoary past .
What were you thinking ?
Every piece of information is like a small , piteous firefly pitted against a huge black wall of ignorance . Believe me , there are real monsters looming in that blackness. Monsters of facts , giants of inference , colossal unspoken truths , no one knows or cares about . All we see is the puny firefly , and its teensy radii of glowing light.
It is humbling and scary , at the same time.
Admission of ignorance is wiser, and more closer to the truth, than parading one's sparse hoard of knowledge.
To quote Plato " I am the wisest man alive , for I know one thing , and that is that I know nothing".
That said , a few days ago , her daughter , a precocious ten year old , heard some conversation , in queen's language (laced with unparliamentary words ) between the two offsprings of mine and wished to know , why were the "didis" talking "like that" .
Now , that would be ignorance , or as Roald Dahl would put it "lack of schooling".
What name would one give to admission of total , blank , "un-knowledge" about some punk lyrics "rapping" away into one's cochlea . Utter gibberish ! Not for everyone though . Not only is it lip-synched , but also claimed by dreamy-eyed listeners to be "oh-so -sublime "
There are several chocolate faced guys on the silvery frontages of TV, ipads , who fight mythical sea monsters , and wage seriously violent wars in remote galaxies , who one is totally unfamiliar with .
Then there is this tip of the iceberg syndrome . Wherein , you familiarise yourself with some piece of remote history (well-documented , the wikipedia reassures you) only to discover several layers and branches , and bylanes to that piece of your (or someone else's) hoary past .
What were you thinking ?
Every piece of information is like a small , piteous firefly pitted against a huge black wall of ignorance . Believe me , there are real monsters looming in that blackness. Monsters of facts , giants of inference , colossal unspoken truths , no one knows or cares about . All we see is the puny firefly , and its teensy radii of glowing light.
It is humbling and scary , at the same time.
Admission of ignorance is wiser, and more closer to the truth, than parading one's sparse hoard of knowledge.
To quote Plato " I am the wisest man alive , for I know one thing , and that is that I know nothing".
No comments:
Post a Comment