Better to Know, or Not to Know?
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"To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die...
To sleep, perchance to dream - ay, there's the rub." - from play Hamlet, by William Shakespeare
“To know too much is to age before your time.” - Old saying
“What the eyes see, the heart must carry. Some visions are too heavy.” - Old saying
Listen to poem:
'Tis it better to know, or not to know?
Now there's the rub!
The dilemma in a Pandora paradox.
Sure it's nice to get to know yourself, but not entirely,
for the abyss within the cage will return the gaze.
Better, perhaps to not know that the killer asteroid
arrives tomorrow at half past ten.
Nor what's in all the horror-scopes you yen,
in learning what Science
tells us about the Universe, now and then.
These telescopes peer deeper and deeper
into the abyss telling us that:
The universe began a trillion trillion years ago.
There are a trillion trillion stars out there.
The more you look, the more you see back in time.
Ah Hah! There's a new Earth waiting for us out there,
lying a trillion trillion miles away.
It will take us a trillion trillion years to get there.
Are we better off knowing or not knowing all of this?
Is Ignorance Indeed - Bliss?
Oh my, what we missed when stopped
looking into the sky with ancient eyes!
Behold the swirl of 'Starry Starry Night'.
Bickering Gods, with unblinking eyes staring down on human folly.
Portals to ancestors and spirits resplendent in heaven.
The wonders, calendars, navigation guides and signs above.
The body of the goddess Nut, in the arch of the Milky Way,
cradling dead Pharaohs ascended as new stars.
A hunter draws his bow.
A bull charges.
An emu struts and prances beside a billabong.
Perseus lifts the serpent’s head.
It was all such a living lively show
in the wondrous sky above.
It should never have become
a map of pin-pricks for nitwit twits
blinking into oblivion
in endless useless overreach.
Why? It's beyond me.
Copyright © John Anderson | Year Posted 2025
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