The Ignorant Cowboy plopped into this dimension around 1994 — an alchemical byproduct of William S. Burroughs, Buster Keaton, gnosticism, Egyptian friezes, Edgar Poe, Samuel Beckett, Sa’adi of Shiraz, and the peculiar texture of dry erase markers.
But pause — we are waylaid by that old saw about the bliss of ignorance and the folly of possessing sagacity. The common misinterpretation trumpets that a reduction in knowledge produces a symmetrical increase in happiness. However, it is obvious that the qualification « where » redirects the thrust of the argument thus: that in a civilization populated solely by ignorami, wisdom is a silly waste, a cruel joke, a pathetic absurdity. Possessing a single jot more of intelligence than your know-nothing neighbor makes you seem to him a fool, and if a mob gather, democracy has the last word (and plenty of pitchforks).
And so the people party till dawn. Detaching oneself from the throng to stagger homeward, a suspicion slowly blossoms that happiness and unhappiness are felt as deeply, and in equal quantity, by both the ignorant and the wise. As empty as morning city streets is the notion that one of us will ever wholly convince another of the profundity of our insights, or solidity of our emotions. Let us remember there are sufficient mysteries, misunderstandings and boondoggles in the world for each of us to enjoy ignorance of something.
