it's a question! From Dave from SF!
And here it is:
If ignorance is bliss and knowledge is power, which is better??
That's an easy one.
I've long contended that bliss, or happiness, whatever you want to call it, is easy to achieve: Don't read newspapers; don't listen to the radio, don't read books. Immerse yourself in popular culture, cover your walls with airbrush rendderings of rainbows, sunsets, and unicorns. And above all, don't open your heart to love. Love, even when it's good (especially when it's good) will inevitably bring heartache.
Happiness must be distinguished from joy. Joy is what you're after. Joy is always snatched from the jaws of despair. Joy doesn't have to be rapturous. It can be a quiet, peaceful joy, stealing upon you while you do some small, kind act for a stranger. Or, of course, it can be rapturous. (Personal little flashback to slipping my dick right into Special Guy's ass as I held him in the surf at Fire Island. *sigh*)
And the strength that you get from knowledge? It's the good kind of strength. The strength that brings hope. It's the strength that brings the perspective that Sir Isaiah Berlin called "a spirited pessimism," which I'd explain as being, "things are probably going to get worse before they get better, but the crocuses are coming up and I just saw the first robin of the Spring."
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