It really is…

The ignorance we’re familiar with is the kind where YOU not knowing something allows you to be happier than if you had that knowledge. It holds true in a variety of cases, like how you’re happier the second before you’re told your parents left everything to your sister and nothing for you in their will.

I’m not one to argue for lack of information but wouldn’t you be happier if you didn’t know your mother was a whore? If that last sentence angers you, I’m sorry to have been the one to tell you. if it made you laugh, congratulations, you have no shame.

But there’s a second type of ignorance which keeps people happy, the kind where you deliberately keep OTHERS in the dark to ensure that they don’t want to kill you (anymore than they already do). You stay alive, they’re unaware of what they should be doing to you and everyone’s better off (i.e. you’re better off).

And this is why my consumption of information is limited to that which directly improves my happiness – and why I lie by omission. I don’t want to know about things that will make me sad unless it’s absolutely necessary (which is why the kids dying from AIDS in Africa get little time from me, sorry), and I definitely want to know about things that make me happy (how much money did I make today? Ooooohhhh….).

And the lying – well, let’s just say that the less you know about what I think about you, the better it is for our relationship. I love you darlin’, I really do.

Remember, what people know could get you killed…