I’ve been curious about this for a while. I’m one of those people who has always been a devout devourer of whatever knowledge happens to come my way; the idea that learning something could be bad for me is kind of absurd. It’s always been my experience that the more I know, the better my life is.
Can anyone provide me with their negative experiences with knowledge? Have you ever learned something that has made your life worse? Any accurate factual information that, though true, has ultimately been detrimental to your well-being?
I have to say I found the whole process of becoming an adult a big disappointment. How many childhood myths are there that need debunking in order to become a functioning adult? I can’t count them.
Maybe it’s incorrect to say I regret gaining this knowledge. More accurately, I regret that this kind of knowledge exists to be gained.
You should try reading Kurt Vonnegut’s Galapagos. A rough summary would be, “The dumber you are, the happier you are.”
Like Bob Seger said, “Wish I didn’t know now what I didn’t know then”
There are many examples of how this works, one finds out a fact about a loved one, and is not able to overcome it. I had a patient who was in a happy marriage, until he discovered that, long before he met her she’d had a sexual encounter with someone he knew vaguely thru work. It made him crazy, and stressed their relationship all to hell. He admitted he was better off not knowing.
…well, I certainly didn’t need firsthand knowledge that my parents have sex.
I didn’t need to have firsthand knowledge of the fact that my dad looks at internet porn, engages in stimulating conversations with women, and has even exchanged a phone number with one.
I didn’t need to know that my brother and his ex-fiance had sex in my bed when they were staying here after my grandma died.
When I first found out about all the icky things my paternal grandfather had done, I was less than amused.
And there are some things that happened to me that I’ve repressed that, if I actually remembered (as opposed to knowing about them), could really mess me up.
The knowledge that my mother, had abortion been legal/acceptable in 1956, would not have been born is still rather unsettling.
When I was a kid, I was a devout Catholic. That’s not right… I was forced to be a devout Catholic. Anyhow, there’s a church not far from my hometown called the Santuario de Chimayo where (supposedly) all sorts of miracles have taken place. In a little room to the side of the altar, there’s a hole in the ground that contains “miracle” dirt that would cure whatever ailed you. I was lead to believe that through divine means, this hole never emptied of dirt. Sure enough, every time I went there, the dirt was at the same level.
I can’t remember how old I was when it happened, but I was there at an odd time, helping my dad survey the property when I came across this pile of very fine dirt. I asked my dad if he knew what that dirt was for and he said, “Oh, that’s the dirt they fill the hole with.”
Sigh…
It doesn’t matter anymore, but I miss that feeling of awe that can only come with being ignorant.
Well, when I was an adolescent, I didn’t need to know about the aftereffects of nuclear war. I saw “The Day After” and read stuff and in college even took a class in debates about nuclear technology. It caused me a profound amount of anxiety and nightmares. I had a very hepless feeling that escalation was inevitable and that the world would never change. That sort of worry didn’t do me any good and I wish I hadn’t known so much about the issue.
When the Berlin was came down you could have knocked me over with a feather, and I began to realize that nothing was inevitable.
Never. I’ve learned a lot of things that I sincerely wish were not true, but I’d rather know them anyway and try to reconcile them with my vision of the world than remain ignorant of them and go on my merry way.
Several years ago, when an employer basically rooked me out of a weeks wages, I learned that because I was a “technical/professional” worker, the US Department of Labor could do nothing to help me. I never did get paid for that week.
Have you ever gained knowledge that you ultimately regretted?
Yeah, just about everything in The TMI Thread, and most of the zit-popping pimples-from-hell threads. But if I could go back in time and choose to not read them, I know I’d read them anyway.
A long time ago on a SDMB message board far far away, I read a thread that made reference to the “horrible straw thing” which made it clear that it was a sexual practice that gave the OP the creeps. I blithely asked what the heck they were talking about and was told about the practice of felching.
