so "Ignorance is pain", as in the antithesis of "Ignorance is bliss"? I still don't see how that is even related to Nostalgia, let alone encompassing its entirety - in my opinion at least, Nostalgia is a positive experience for the nostalg...ist. It is remembering a better time, fixating on (an often delusional concept of the past being) a "better" time, sometimes at the expense of the present. There may be pain there, in the after-effects - the realisation that such a time is gone, but it is a pain of loss, not ignorance. You can't be nostalgic about something you never knew nor cannot comprehend, which is essential for one to be ignorant of the fact.
If you believe in pure pre-determinism, "opportunities lost" isn't something that should bother you. If you believe in pseudo-pre-determinism (my own view - your choices are yours, but the choice that you make is pre-determined by simple fact that you are you, and ultimately there is only one choice you are going to make) it's a little bit messy - you were still pre-determined to miss any opportunity you missed, but it's best to work on the basis that you weren't and work towards getting as many opportunities as you can. And hey, if you believe in free will, then every second millions and millions of opportunities pass you by so if you were to spend time resenting them all, you'd be ****ed.
I guess what I'm trying to say there is that the "pain of ignorance" under such a definition is pretty much pointless depression and paralysis.
__________________
"I found it eventually, at the bottom of a locker in a disused laboratory, with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard". Ever thought of going into Advertising?"
- Arthur Dent
|