What is ignorance? Is it something we should avoid in order to be better, or is it a tool to make us a better person? I started asking myself this question at the end of November 2022, when I decided to start this blog.
I think that at first impression for each of us, the word ignore evokes a negative aspect when trying to communicate or solving problems. Ignorance is something that every person faces on a practically daily basis. It is good to realize that just as we are ignored, we also ignore. Of course, we may not ignore the facts that others would ignore and vice versa. However, this does not change the fact that the concept of ignoring can be understood as a tool.
From the Latin ignorare, not to know, we can deduce that the meaning of ignorance is not knowing or unwillingness to know. But how do we know what we want and don't want to ignore, or what we want or don't want to be ignored?
Conscious and Unconscious Ignorance
We come in contact with hundreds of events every day, most of which we ignore. Consciously or unconsciously. What is the difference between the two? Unconscious ignoring, a more frequent variant of ignoring, consists in the fact that we subconsciously filter information and stimuli that we evaluate in a fraction of a second as unnecessary. We can also add here, for example, forgetting. Each person unconsciously ignores a different number of stimuli that they receive. Therefore, this kind of ignoring cannot be influenced, or only very difficult (for example, by training the mind. Trying not to ignore any stimulus is very complex and requires a lot of energy for conscious processing, which is related to the intelligence of the person in question.), even if we could say that after all, I process all the stimuli I receive. However, this is not the case. The license plate numbers of the surrounding cars, the number of floors of the buildings we see, the headlines of articles that do not interest us, the advertising banners at public transport stops. We receive all these and many other stimuli, and we know that we can ignore them if we want to, but subconsciously this unnecessary information is filtered out so that the brain is not overloaded unnecessarily. Conscious ignoring, on the other hand, is, in my opinion, much more taxing on the brain, just like the aforementioned conscious *non*ignorance. By the term conscious (non)ignorance, I mean the concept of being able to process a stimulus that may already be consciously or unconsciously unfiltered and only then decide how I will continue to work with this information and whether I will react to the stimulus or not.
If we already process the stimulus and actively perceive the possibilities of reaction to this stimulus, there are usually just two options, either to react or not to react. And often, if we consciously spend energy on processing such a stimulus, we decide to react actively (an answer to a question someone asked us, a response to insults, processing and remembering the essence of the read text, expressing sympathy for a person we care about and feel emotional discomfort on his part...). The ability to ignore stimuli processed in this way decreases in direct proportion to how much the stimulus affects us emotionally. If it is a stimulus that causes happiness in us, it is difficult not to ignore it and we show it with a smile on our lips or an internal pat on the shoulder, or vice versa, with a negative stimulus, for example an insult, we often tend to return the insult or defend ourselves against insults or false accusations. Because we are human, we have egos and we are selfish. Subconsciously, we do not want to be the one to whom someone tells lies or insults, and therefore we cannot ignore such a stimulus.
For me, power lies precisely in the awareness of priorities regarding what is and is not important and what we should and should not ignore. The aforementioned insults or false accusations are a beautiful example of how a person can consciously ignore stimuli that he should ignore despite his ego or selfishness. Knowing how to realize that reacting to such negative stimuli results in indignation and inner restlessness in ourselves, which has an impact on how we are perceived by the environment and how we perceive ourselves. Our self-confidence is what needs to be built and the ability to consciously ignore is, in my opinion, one of the most important tools for building self-confidence.