Courage in ignorance
Ignorance is bliss.. but can ignorance also lead to courage?

There are examples in history where apparently impossible feats have been achieved by the most unsuspected characters in the most surprising ways. I am sure it takes unique qualities and the strongest of characters to achieve something well beyond the proportion of one’s means. Though more often than not, a bit of ignorance is quite essential.
Everyone knows the story of Columbus who discovered America. And we know that America is not what he set out to discover. He wanted to discover India. It was a courageous goal, given that day's technology. Though apart from everything else, Ignorance probably played a big role in his quest. The story goes like this.

Among-st the Greek philosophers, it was Pythagoras who proposed that the earth might be round. A theory more inspired by aesthetic sense than reasoning. Aristotle, later reasoned it out scientifically. And it was yet another Greek philosopher, Eratosthenes who actually measured the circumference of earth, with a surprising accuracy.
He had heard stories of a well in Egypt. On a particular day at a particular time, the sun rays cast no shadow on the bottom of this well. He measured the length of the shadow a stick casts at this exact time near his own home. With an estimate of the distance between his home and the well, he did a simple calculation to come up with the circumference of the earth.
The calculations of the circumference of earth were probably repeated many times. Posidonius used the star Canopus as his light source and followed a similar procedure. However he came up with a number just about two thirds of Eratosthenes. When Ptolemy wrote his treatise on geography, He chose to favor this smaller value over the more accurate larger value.
So, 1700 years after Eratosthenes lived, when Christopher Columbus set his sails to discover India, he was dangerously optimistic about how big the earth is. I don’t know if he would have undertaken the feat had he known the real circumference anyway. Though I am sure it would have discouraged him for his choice of route, to say the least. He would have probably left America to be discovered by someone else!
While Columbus was ignorant accidentally, I would argue sometimes it is good to be ignorant or rather less calculative in general. In fact nature tuned us that way. Imagine if I have to optimize every little detail of my day before starting it, I would probably never dare to get out of bed. Imagine worrying about every vehicle on the road before starting the car.
Our brain always makes an ill-informed decision and saves us from perennial paralysis.

In the age of information technology, the paralysis of knowing too much is quite a rampant phenomenon. It is very hard to know the wrong size of earth before setting the sail. And for those who need excuses, there is no lack ‘knowledge of caveats’ in doing anything at all.
Careful ignorance has become an important skill in our times. In fact for anyone who aspires to be an entrepreneur, I think it is an indispensable skill.
Often there are thousands of well informed reason for not doing something,
as for doing it, there is typically just one!
Sources:
The story of columbus: https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200606/history.cfm
Thanks to Kelvin hobbs and xkcd for demonstrating my point :)
