Willful Ignorance

 

If the United States of America is going to slide into the historical dust bin containing previous empires, it will happen because of the willful ignorance of so many of its citizens and the cowardice of so many of its timorous leaders.

“There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn't true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”

― Soren Kierkegaard

“Five percent of the people think;

ten percent of the people think they think;

and the other eighty-five percent would rather die than think.”

― Thomas A. Edison

“Any formal attack on ignorance is bound to fail because the masses are always ready to defend their most precious possession - their ignorance.”

― Hendrick Willem Van Loon

“If it's a choice between a difficult truth and a simple lie, people will take the lie every time. Even if it kills them.”

― Paul Murray

“Willful ignorance is blissful only in the mind of a remarkable fool.”

― Tracey Bond

“So many it seems, have made it their life's goal to bask in the ignorance of their certainty.”

― John Chaplin

“There is simple ignorance, not knowing, and willful ignorance that refuses to know, that covers the light of knowledge with the dark blanket of bias.”                 Elizabeth Moon

Summer's Eve

 (a children's song)

It’s summer’s eve and froggies call

And Mom and Dad are quiet now

You slip away and chase the sun

Waiting and looking for fireflies

Summer’s eve and all is well

The darkness wraps you up all cozy

Just the sounds of crickets and frogs

The hush feels soft and rosey

This is your time to think and dream

To look at stars and wonder 

All the things you want just seem

To drift out there in summer’s moon

Ulteriority

(Robert Frost’s wisdom)

They come as if from nowhere

Like the grounded finely clipped 

Twigs when things get hungry.

Probably squirrels. You can

Always bet on the squirrels,

The cute ratty crooks.

But they go also, like the

Clippings and prunings you

Left to the whimsy of winter.

If you look closely though in early

Spring, the first of the balmy days,

Something comes out,

Nothing you’d ever want, but

That’s the way they are. They come

Out as if from nowhere.

Someone said it better, ”the force

That through the green fuse

Drives…” us, but how can that be

We being so much above this or

That, we’ll never really know?

But there are times, like a chickadee’s 

Frustration to tell you that it needs you, 

Or that ratty crook clacking its warning 

to its pals that you, yes you, might just take them on.

And you go to lift a rock and there they 

Are and have they been waiting for you

To lift a rock and why did you and they

Pick that rock when sometimes they 

Aren’t even there? Something didn’t care. 

And still, they come as if from nowhere, 

especially at times that ought to be Usual.

These exceptions then will never not be

Around for us you and me who seem still 

unready for the comfort in the wonder 

they offer in such gentle surprises from out of nowhere.