Indifference or Ignorance?

by Manuela Timofte

Today’s post starts a bit differently. Two months ago I expressed my gratitude to Marcello Comitini for reblogging and translating the article “Music, Rhythm, and… Dance” into Italian. Today, I want to express my gratitude to him once again, but this time multiplied by three, considering that he has translated my present article into Italian, French and Spanish. So, I am truly grateful to him for his efforts.

Thank you, Marcello!

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«I have been told many times «to be more indifferent», and «learn not to hurt yourself». However, you can’t dictate to your lower self how to behave or your soul not to love. You do what you feel, what you think, what you know, what you can, and what you want. And yet how far can you go with false indifference? False indifference can only take you so far until you reach depression, and drown yourself in drugs or alcohol to forget, because you «want to forget», «don’t you want to know», or «don’t you want to feel». As humans, we are not born to be unfeeling. We are born to feel and allow ourselves to experience our emotions.

Being depressed doesn’t make you indifferent; you lie to yourself, and you will experience the repercussions sooner or later. The mask of indifference will only remain false. You will discharge the anger inside you elsewhere to others because you did not take a stand at a certain moment. After all, you suppressed your emotions too much to pretend indifference. Emotions need to be released. It’s not for nothing that we say, «I feel like I’m exploding, if not…»

By using indifference to demonstrate the lack of pain, we think we will make others feel pain with this indifference. It’s just that «the calculation at home does not match the one at the fair». The person to whom you want to prove that they did not affect you by their words or actions may not be bothered by your attitude at all. However, the one with the same vibration as your condition will react or suffer.

In addition to this type of false indifference, some display the indifference caused by ignorance. One of the most dramatic things related to the human condition is the connection between ignorance and pride, expressed so well by the Romanian saying «A fool is not fool enough if he will not be arrogant.»

Looking for the explanation of ignorance, we will find it a «lack of knowledge, lack of teaching,» and Carlos Castaneda says that ignorance forces us to give up everything that does not align with the expectations of our self-image. Some people don’t have much schooling and yet manage much better in life’s problems than others with schooling. Learning per se accumulates from the curiosity to know and learn and you do it because it interests you, it helps you with a goal related to what you enjoy, not because someone else asks you to do it or forces you to do it. Besides, if you want, you can learn from others, animals, nature, and anywhere. When you don’t want to, you pretend not to see, when you’re afraid, you bury yourself in ignorance, as Patricia Cori says.

Born and bred of fear, ignorance became the reason humanity was kept so long in darkness, for ignorance is the darkness in which we stand chained by fear, or as the Emerald Tablets of Thoth, the Atlantean say, «Learning is considered foolish as ignorance and profitable things are harmful to him. He lives in death, and this is his food.»