In An Essay on Literary Criticism, Alexander Pope wrote: “A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring; there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again.” For those of us unfamiliar with Pierian springs and unsure of how to pronounce the word “draught,” what Pope meant was that a tiny bit of knowledge might be worse than none at all, for it could cause some people to give themselves credit for knowing more about a subject than they actually do.
While I’ve never read any of Pope’s other work, I’m extremely impressed with this particular observation. I am living evidence of the veracity of his theory, or at least a corollary of it. In my life the total absence of knowledge has, at least on occasion, been a good thing.
When I was ten years old my life’s ambition was to play for the Philadelphia 76er’s of the National Basketball Association. While no discernable talent and a lack of dedication were both formidable obstacles to my achieving that particular goal, the biggest problem obstacle to my achieving that goal was a lack of height. Fortunately my father suggested a possible solution. With a straight face he matter-of-factly informed me that every human being is taller in the morning than he or she is at night. His explanation for this little-known phenomenon: during the day people spend a good deal of time on their feet. The pressure of all that weight, not to mention various and sundry laws of gravity, makes us all just a tiny bit shorter by the time we go to bed. He maintained that nature made sure that those lost thousandths of an inch of height were regenerated each night while we slept, so that we awaken the next morning back at our original altitude. After letting that information sink in, I decided that it was plausible and hypothesized that if being on my feet all day made me temporarily shorter, staying off them as often as possible might ultimately make me taller, since I’d be gaining back the same nocturnal height everyone else did while not losing quite so much of it during the day. From that point on I stayed off my feet as often as the situation would allow, despite gym teachers, parents, employers and occasional peers making it difficult to do so from time to time. However, thanks to an utter lack of biological knowledge I had no doubt that my peculiar regimen would bear fruit.
I ended up nearly seven inches taller than my father was. Perhaps it was genetics, but I prefer to think that my complete faith in an explanation that I had no learning-based reason to disbelieve had something to do with it as well.
Total lack of knowledge has temporarily been to my advantage on other occasions as well. One winter I had an awful head cold that just wouldn’t go away, and in desperation tried a half-dose of a vile green liquid called Nyquil. Miraculously, the morning after I took that first horrific swig I could breath through my nose again, and a day later the congestion was gone without a trace. I was convinced that Nyquil was a miracle drug which could cure anything. Then one day I helpfully shared my knowledge of its healing powers with a friend who had been feeling under the weather. However, when I generously offered her a shot of the magic elixir she dismissively told me that Nyquil had no medicinal value; it was just alcohol that made you sleep through the night. Since she spoke those words Nyquil has been utterly ineffective for me, and on top of that it still tastes awful. I blame her for destroying its healing power by providing me with an unneeded (and previously unknown) crumb of knowledge.
I unconditionally loved dining at Chinese restaurants until someone innocently asked me if I got headaches from MSG. When I asked her why going to Madison Square Garden would cause me cranial pain, she informed me that the MSG she was talking about was an abbreviation for a flavor enhancer used in Chinese food. It was no coincidence that I later that evening I was laid low by an excruciating headache which I’m convinced was caused not by the MSG, but that lethal iota of learning my “friend” had thoughtlessly and cruelly shared with me.
I’m not sure who first said that ignorance is bliss, but at this point I’m not sure if I want to know. I’m afraid that if I learn anything more about the expression I’ll find out that it’s not true after all. Then where would I be?
Andy YoungReturn to main page
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