Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Eve's Apple and the Bliss of Ignorance

I'm beginning to think that there is such a thing as knowing too much.

I'm helping T. with a consulting job for a juggernaut Christian NGO (that I won't name here) and, frankly, am really struggling to stay with it. I have so many reservations and philosophical issues with some of their projects - which, to be fair, every person I've talked to who works for them also struggles with.

The same could be said for my current "interesting" condition - it's hard to relax, knowing so much about all that could yet go wrong, or may have already gone wrong but I just don't know about it yet.

At the same time, there is a sense in which the knowledge that comes from experience is so hard-won that it takes on a feeling of value. I don't know that, given the choice, I would want to return to blissful ignorance.

(I'm trying to work in an allusion to William Blake but will have to leave it here in the parentheses).

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