Ignorant. Now there’s a term that punches above its weight when it comes to emotional baggage! It’s a bumpy sort of word, a bit awkward to pronounce and carries the burden of what I see as an unfair reputation.
You see, I used to think it only meant stupid, dumb, other words like that that are insulting and really not very nice at all. Being called ignorant was an insult. Ignoramus was a popular one at primary school. It made us feel smart – not only were we pointing out that we thought someone was stupid we were doing it with a big word that made us sound clever! Well… hindsight would indicate none of that to be right and that the polar opposite is the real truth. Sigh.
IGNORANT
From the latin: “not knowing”
Lacking knowledge or awareness; uneducated or unsophisticated
OK, so it does mean some rather negative things. The younger me felt (embarrassing to admit) a condescending sort of generosity towards those ‘uneducated people’ who would still have a little tale to tell. Bless them. The older, wiser me begs ‘their’ forgiveness. Because, this IS all of us, isn’t it?!
We get up each morning and do whatever it is that makes up our usual day. Most commonly it involves maintaining some personal hygiene, buying and preparing and eating food, going to school and work, cleaning. So much cleaning. It doesn’t seem like much of a tale to share when we summaries it like that. And yet…
DULL
Lacking interest or excitement or brightness, vividness or sheen
Mentally slow, lacking brightness of mind, somewhat stupid…
lack of imagination, loss of keenness of intelligence
Max is on to something with this in the Desiderata. There are stories everywhere waiting to be told and, if we look inwards, we all have them no matter how dull we might think we are. They’re the things you share when you catch up with your mates and have a drink (or two). They’re the family legends. You know the ones. You’ve got some, haven’t you?!! These are the stories I love more than any other.
The thought of being dull and ignorant reminds me again of the need to be open to new things. There’s an endless amount to learn out there and no-one knows all of it. Reading is one of the ways I find as a doorway into questions I wouldn’t have otherwise known to ask. Johann Hari described fiction as an empathy gym and there is no truer word in my opinion. Reading novels is a way to learn about things that are not ‘you’. When I read I come to a new understanding of the nuances of normal life wherever it is lived; privileged or not, town or country, inland or coastal. I read about a life in another country and in that process come to know just a bit more of one way the world appears in that place.
Reading is also, powerfully, a way to examine lives that ARE like yours from a safe distance and maybe, just maybe, understand yourself a little bit more.
My favourite books, the ones I go back to again and again, are all stories of life being lived. The Harp In The South is there, Little Women, What Katy Did. I’m not completely stuck in the distant past (!), and have books like Dolce e Salate and Blackberry Wine on high repetition as well.
If you look closely, every single life has a curious tale embedded within.
It might be a story of survival. We escaped the flood / fire / drought. My parents came here on a boat.
There is often an adventure story in there somewhere. We used to go to the beach every summer and this one year… My brothers and I always hightailed it up the bush and …
There is always a story of love in there somewhere. When I met my partner. My nan. My boyfriend in grade 3. My dogs.
These are the stories I love the most. I am happy to listen to your recall of that camping trip and watch how it shines as you polish your memory of it with each retelling. Tell me about your childhood growing up in the country and we can share where our experiences overlap and where things were different. I will listen and not interrupt if you trust me with a tale about something I had no way to anticipate and no experience like it to share.
But let’s not overlook those fantastical, breathtaking stories that keep you reading until the wee hours of the morning. Hands up those who lined up and read each Harry Potter book before any child could get near it? (It was research for work, obviously).Where are my fellow true crime aficionados? It’s not just podcasts, now, is it? Jane Harper, take a bow. We do tend to celebrate the stories that make us gasp, entrance us with magic and mysticism and dreams; tales that transport us into imaginary worlds and far away from the (comparatively boring) one we inhabit.
Both have a place in entertainment. Both have a place in real life! Just not too much of any one thing, please. I’m partial to an adventure and will tell you the tale (over and over and over again…) and will be very happy, thank you very much, to return to the humdrum of daily life. How about you?
I have come to love the word ignorant as it really means opportunity. An opportunity to learn. A chance to improve my knowledge. If I am ignorant of something, I want to find out how to change that. Maybe, just maybe, it will be a way to connect with someone I hadn’t understood before. At the moment I am obsessively reading about life in Spain. I’m learning some Spanish words and turns of phrase and how they structure a day with that tantalising siesta in the middle of it. Apparently, and this is controversial, 9pm is dinnertime, not bedtime.
What the???
Another great read Melinda. I love your take on ignorant. Although here’s a story for you – my ‘mother-in-law’ sent me a message today that she wore her ‘Yes’ badge on her morning walk and someone she knew stopped her and berated her for being ‘ignorant’. She said she tried to answer the woman’s question as to why she was voting yes, by saying ‘because I’m doing what is right’. She was then told again how ignorant she was being. I think all too often the word ignorant is invoked by someone who is projecting…just my opinion!
I felt a surge of… frustration reading this!
It’s exactly this use of ‘ignorant’ that made me reflect. It gets thrown like a dagger, doesn’t it?!
The calmer, more rational part of me, tries to balance things. The attack is unhelpful and says so much about the person hurling abuse instead of respecting difference. I think it’s used when someone is frustrated that there is a difference of opinion in something that matters to them.
Sigh… a perfect example of how tricky this word AND concept can be!!!!