It is Good You Do Not Know Everything

by Jayaram V

The world is a very cruel place to live. You do not know how lucky you are that you are to be alive and get on with your life. There is a lot of randomness about life. We tend to ignore it to avoid the commotion and disturbance it causes in our minds. Living in this world is not easy. Many things can happen that can break your heart and faith in the humanity. In this world, you should be risk-averse and stay away from trouble. It is better to be a little fearful, thoughtful and hesitant than to be careless or reckless.

It is sad but true that the world regularly witnesses a lot of violence and suffering. As someone said each of us lives inside a bubble, which represents our protected world. It keeps you safe from the world outside. Living inside that bubble you do not pay much attention to what happens outside.

In a way it is good for us to be protected from the reality of our existence. It is good for us to have Nature put a great limitation upon our ability to know because we cannot fully absorb all the information about the world without unsettling our minds. We cannot bear witness to the extent of injustice, chaos, and inhumanity that exists in this world.

The other day while I was driving in my car I saw a deer lying in a pool of blood in the middle of the opposite lane. It was writhing in pain and its whole body was shaking violently. It was obviously hit by a vehicle, when it was probably trying to cross the road in the middle of the day. The person who hit the poor animal for no fault of his as it was a busy road did not seem to have stopped his vehicle and did something about the situation. He probably drove away to avoid trouble or causing traffic jam. There was no one there to end that deer's agony.

There must be many humans and animals in this world, which die every day, like that deer, because of carelessness, cruelty, and violence by others. We live in a cruel world. There is no doubt about it. It is good for us that we do not have the power to know everything that happens in this world. No one can take all that information and still feel good about this world or live in peace.

Especially, if you are a compassionate person you will have issues with all the suffering, agony and pain you see in the world. Compassion is a great virtue, but it is also a great weakness because it makes you vulnerable. It is good for us to be ignorant about many things in this world so that we can selectively choose our perceptions and build our own illusions.