What is knowledge? Is it even possible to answer that question in one succinct thought or sentence?
“Knowledge is power.”
“Ignorance is bliss.”
“Ignorance is not a defense.”
“The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”
By this small selection of quotes it would appear that knowledge would lean more toward the side of being a curse rather than a blessing.
Yet in today’s world and reality it seems we place ever more importance on intelligence and the acquisition of knowledge. Students study in school longer than they ever have and to land just about any job now you need that book cred backing you up in the form of a pricey degree from a university. It doesn’t ever matter if the degree is in a related field to the job anymore just so you actually have one.
For some that degree and the knowledge they gained through earning it may very well be a blessing. Better jobs, higher wages, increased social status.
For those without one it probably, definitely, feels like more of a curse to be the “less learned” candidate.
What about for the person who did not make a choice to either pursue or not pursue higher education though? The person who happened upon knowledge through lived experience or had it bestowed (knowingly or unwittingly) upon them through some other means? The person who did not seek or ask to be the bearer of some knowledge, but is now the one responsible for carrying the weight of knowing whatever it is thy may now be the knower of?
Is that still such an easy answer to the question? Undoubtedly most people would probably agree that a reputable education would present few circumstances in which knowledge is a curse (aside from the debilitating debt they often accompanies higher learning ventures.) Most would agree that to be successful or get ahead in today’s world knowledge is an essential ingredient for any logical and sane person.
What happens to the knowledge of the old ways of the world though? The stuff they stop teaching in school as new subject matter becomes relevant? What about the knowledge of people past that only exists in verbal documents as fewer people remain to teach those lessons? Are those stewards of such knowledge more apt to consider it a blessing or a curse? The responsibility of keeping vital information alive and remembered would seem to be both a burden and an honor.
What happens when such knowledge is no longer repeated and passed along to the next generation? What happens when all the new solutions fail to solve and only the long forgotten ways of days long gone and people forgotten by time are no longer considered knowledge and therefore no longer known? That would seem to me a curse and not a blessing at all.
Who decides what knowledge is worth saving and sharing and the representatives capable of such a duty? Is it a formal decision or a personal interest that keeps such knowledge alive? Does that change the outlook on whether it’s a blessing or a curse?
This question plagues me currently because I feel I have been bestowed with knowledge that I did not ask for. It seems like much tether a curse to be given the insight they I have when I already possessed a strange knack for having foresight into things not yet known. Now that is overwhelming with the understanding of past information.
This isn’t knowledge about anything like mathematics, literature, biology, or horticulture, but rather knowledge and understanding of past mistakes and human failures.
Not the kind of learning you acquire by reading books and studying for tests. This is something different entirely. Something you don’t exactly set your sights upon trying to obtain exactly. This is the kind of knowledge that for some reason chooses you and has little regard for the weight it places upon your shoulders just for being aware of it all.
This comes in the form of unspoken worries learned from knowing a person too well and watching them unravel as they battle the stress of important decisions.
It comes as quiet deathbed confessions from people quietly desperate to be heard, but knowing no one cares to listen after a life lives telling lies and exaggerating all they shared.
It appears as the voice coming from a face that the knowledge itself does not originate from because the true knower of such knowledge is too hesitant to speak the words themself and instead sends messengers to get the word out.
It’s comes from piecing together tidbits and factoids over long painstaking amounts of time just trying to understand and makes sense of something too chaotic to easily comprehend or too risky to be exposed so blatantly.
This kind of knowledge is more like a confessional where people are too ashamed, embarrassed, guilty, scared, timid, weak, angry, tired, hopeless, helpless, confused, proud, confident, unsure, bold, or any number of other ways of being that they don’t want what they admit to be widely known. When people are forced to bare their soul and take accountability for their choices, even if it’s just in the quiet mentioning to a random stranger.
Was I really just a random stranger though? It doesn’t feel like it… not at all honestly. Why was I the one chosen to be given all this information? Why must I be the one to decide what gets shared and repeated and what slowly fades as history keeps being made? How am I supposed to know when it is appropriate to revive the information or when/if it becomes relevant again somehow?
This definitely doesn’t feel like a blessing. The cursed confessions of men living on borrowed time, knowing it’s about to run out, and not brave or courageous enough to just own their truth. Not even if it’s the last choice they ever make and last act they get to carry out.
Instead they chose me to burden it with. Why? For what? Why can’t I see the reason they chose me to leave this knowledge with when there seems to be an overwhelming reason they must have seen some purpose for telling me and not another?
Blessing?
Or
Curse?
Keeper of secrets? Or shedder of light? Let dead men tell no tales? Or try and make sense of why little thy left and use it for something better in a world that grows increasingly dark and tumultuous?
Cursed or blessed?
How would you feel?
submitted by /u/L0stwhilewandering
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