On Why Knowing is Counterproductive...

I often find the story of Adam and Eve fascinating. Growing up in a society with strong feelings of religious affiliation and in the shadow of a benevolent god, I could never surmise why God would banish someone from heaven for acquiring knowledge. Especually when we even have a Goddess of knowledge in our religion.

It was much later that I would learn why the name of the Hindu Goddess of knowledge is the same as that of a (at present non-existent) river, on whose banks civilization grew and flourished a few thousand years ago. That is one of the factors, which taught me about how much devotion this group of nomads had towards their environment, their trees, their earth (One of the oldest scriptures pays tribute to a God, who is present in fire,water,the enviroment and the trees.). I would also learn that my ancient religion demands of me do anything that shows my affiliation to it, and yet regain my claim over it. It would also teach me that a religion that allows almost anything and everything, and lets almost any kind of faith system starting from atheism to polyethism through monoethism, would survive any external onslaught.

However, I had of my own analysis found a reason as to why gaining knowledge leads to banishment from heaven, and that's what is this blog about.

The point is: majority of the people we meet in life are ignorant and, by dint of that virtue they lead a blissful life. As long as one does not have to question esablished norms and logics, one is happy and that comes, to a large extent, from pure ignorance. (This ignorance is not a static quality, but rather a dynamic one. Thus, depending on where one stands, the set of people that appears ignorant would vary. That is to say, to a bookish and informative person, people who don't read a thing may appear ignorant, whereas for a person completely into fashion, a different set of people will appear to be ignorant fools.)

Interestingly, most of the people don't give a damn about issues that do not directly concern them and, so, they lead a very contended life! Thus, for a well-read and informative person, it's difficult to connect to the people around him, because not only they cannot guess what he's talking about, but also that he is totally ignorant of their outlook, opinions and issues that interest them. He proves himself to be a bore to the bone to all the hip people, and he becomes someone avoidable. Eventaully he finds himself alone in his own company, condemned to solitude.

And I think, the above banishment that one faces by knowing more than is necessary to survive, is (metaphorically) the expulsion from the heaven, with which one is punished for eating fruits from the widsom tree.