I’m pretty ignorant.
But it’s willful, so it’s okay, because that’s how freedom works.
I find almost everything bewildering.
Let me take a step back.
My parents, in a stunning show of cleverness which in retrospect seems nearly diabolical, cured me of curiosity at a young age with the cunning use of parenting.
I had as much curiosity as any kid back then. More than some. Less than a few. And whenever I fulfilled that age-old stereotype of a child who knows nothing and I asked my parents for some explanation, they always responded with the same phrase. And it didn’t matter what I asked about either, they always answered the same way.
They said, “Here’s a dictionary — here’s an encyclopedia. Look it up.”
Which sounded an awful lot like work to me, which is the opposite of what I wanted. That’s why I asked them, because I had no interest in thinking for myself. What did they think I was? Some kind of independent intelligence capable of imagination and coming to my own conclusions? What is this, the ScyFy channel? Come on, guys! That’s entirely the wrong image to project onto me. When was the last time I even looked intelligent? There’s a reason my nickname used to be “Cross-eyed Ozzie,” and it wasn’t because of the second reason you’re thinking of. Get your mind out of the gutter, you dirty-thinking person.
I learned very early on that the only way to avoid any kind of work at all, and to continue with the happiness of a child that seemed to be the only happiness worth happening, was to stop asking questions of anyone ever.
Which worked out great. It was a great theory. I felt like I had hit on a winning strategy, you know?
Until I realized that just because I don’t ask a question didn’t mean that I stopped learning things.
It stressed me out, you know? I had been tooling along, just listening to the Beastie Boys or something and driving down the highway, when, like a stone falling from a clear blue sky, I would say something like, “Man, you’d think that a couple of Jewish dudes would have no business breaking into hip-hop. But if you think about it, the mere concept of the ‘ghetto’ was invented specifically because of bigotry against the Jews during the Plague Years. See what I’m saying? Not the same as Black culture in America at all, sure, but there’s definitely a correlative there.”
I’ve never said that exactly, for the record. But that’s just because I have more time to edit when I’m writing. I did say things like it.
That’s the real danger, though. I have no idea, for sure, where I got this information. And it unsettles me. All I want to do is maintain a happy level of ignorance about everything, just like everyone else. I just want normal worries, like everyone else. I want to go complain about lines at the DMV and how I have no idea why the facility barely works in one breath and then say I’ll never pay taxes if I can help it in the next breath. I want to talk about the Team of Sport that my area pays offerings of blood and money and allegiance to and how they may suck this year, but next year will be their year, man-guy-fellow! I want to worry about making sure that, if I break out, it happens no later than Thursday, so that it has time to more or less clear up by Saturday.
These are the worries that I want to have.
But no.
I have been cursed with a subconsciousness. And with an imagination full of background fuzz. And senses that work even when I’m not thinking. And an at least partly functional memory. What these things together mean is that, no matter what I want for myself, I have what my parents, in their apparent lack of naivety, pretended that I had when I was a child: independent thought.
In spite of my best efforts, it turns out that I am what’s called a “reasoning human,” with all the powers for judgment and discernment thereunto assigned.
I may make stupid decisions. I may, in fact, be a complete asinine jag-off that the world would be better without. I may much prefer the experience of thoughtlessly joining a mob on whatever issue sounds most exciting at any given moment rather than taking a moment to try and answer, “Hey, do I agree with this?” Questions like that just slow me down! Questions like that are why we have bourbon! Don’t need to worry about questions like that when there’s bourbon!
That all may be true. But I make up for it by being absolutely guilty of utter thoughtlessness.
Which is my choice. That’s the important thing, right? Freedom, bitches! ’Murica!
I may be ignorant, but I’m choosing to be ignorant. I’m choosing, and that’s all that matters.
Let’s have an adventure.
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