According to a study comparing blackbirds residing in a city and those living in the country, an ornithologist has
"found that city birds start their workdays earlier and their biological clocks tick faster. Just like their human counterparts, they adopt a faster pace, work longer hours, and work and sleep less in cities... Urban males also molt sooner and reach sexual maturity faster. In contrast, country blackbirds begin their day traditionally, at sunrise, don't rush, and sleep longer."
According to other animal researchers reporting on this metropolitan influence,
"we've caused at least ten urban species to grow brains that are 6 percent larger than those of their country cousins."
These quotes come from the book "The Human Age: The World Shaped by Us" written by Diane Ackerman. I have read, (and I believe), that similar results apply to Humans. In our neverending quest for Happiness, it appears we have unwittingly added both stress and intelligence, and each one's accompanying benefits and burdens. Depending upon the moment, this can be both encouraging and discouraging.
By stressing over stress, we are driven to search for ways to eliminate, (or at least limit), the adversity and pain. This in turn creates a necessity for more and more unique, clever, and often complex solutions. Which in turn, over several recent generations, has added to both individual and collective intelligence. Proposed solutions have ranged from spiritual to political to technological to philosophical to instructional to affiliations and loyalties to health and wellness to pleasure-seeking to creative expression to compassionate understanding to nonproductive (quiescent or harmful) escape to divisions of power and on and on and on, continuing to branch into ever-more specialized subsets, all seeking avoidance of pain and adversity.
Collectively we can no longer ignore the volumes of available knowledge that has come as a result of these changes, though individually many of us still practice the dictum "Ignorance is Bliss." We need to take a hint from our enlarged intelligence and use it to rein in our enlarged egos. We need to ignore the divisive customs and beliefs that have been handed down through the generations, and we need to adopt a tolerant, compassionate worldview that will lead us to common ground. We need to shape and mold our learning to accommodate the necessity of universally productive interdependence; and to do this we need to embrace the unavoidable pain of adversity.
I am skirting territory I've covered multiple times so I will veer this direction, take a left at the light, a right at the windmill, and search for unexplored ground in this area.
These are winding roads.
I find myself back in the same general vicinity.
I see one representation of ignorance over there gently pushing and coaxing and wheedling and encouraging intelligence up that steep hill, as intelligence looks back appreciatively. Over there I see another representative of ignorance laid back with his hands clasped behind his head, in the deep shade of that apple tree, eyes half closed, watching intelligence frolic aimlessly in the sunshine. And over there, yet another agent of ignorance is playfully tackling intelligence from behind and the two of them are gamboling about at the base of another steep hill where intelligence had been looking up contemplating a climb.
Intelligence comes from ignorance. The moment, (any moment), an individual leaves their ignorance dozing in the shade and allows their intelligence to prance in the sunlight, is a moment of triumph for ignorance. In order to advance my intelligence I must be conscious of and inspired by my ignorance. Instead, I too often believe that my intelligence so dwarfs my ignorance as to make it nonexistent or, at the very least, inconsequential. I ignore my ignorance at my own peril.
(The 3 examples below are taken from "The Chronicle of Higher Education" January 20, 2017 - Volume LXIII, Number 20.)
- To see that a convicted gunman killed nine African-Americans after he Googled "black on white crime" and was led to a white supremacist Web site that confirmed his "truth" that "black violence on white Americans is a crisis" though all reliable statistics show "most violence against white Americans is committed by other white Americans"...
- To hear that our new President has verbally validated the "truth" found in the National Enquirer...
- To read that college students, (from Yale, no less), believe the "truth" that "It is your---(Yale's)---job to create a place of comfort and home!... ...It is not about creating an intellectual space!" And when a Professor failed to do this to their satisfaction, circumstance dictated that he resign his residential position and Yale apologized to the students...
...I have to ask, how many of us are prancing in the sunlight?
For more than five years, as represented through this site, I have worked in my daily Life to be actively hopeful. Early in this post I stated that the combination of greater stress and greater intelligence can be both encouraging and discouraging. In this moment, I have moved past the stress, believing it is a given if we are to progress as is currently necessary. In this moment, I am much more discouraged (and disgusted) by this triumph of ignorance. Though it feels counterintuitive to cultivate ignorance in order to attain greater intelligence, I remain actively hopeful that in greater and greater numbers each one of us will acknowledge our personal ignorance and it will aid and inspire each one of us to climb ever-steeper hills.
I believe we have little choice.
Okay. Back in my transport I will veer right at that fork up ahead, stay true at the next crossroads, make a sharp left at the roundabout, and stop at the scenic overlook on the top of the hill. It is a beautiful view with the sun shining on the lush green valley sloping up to the gleaming skyscrapers that are reflecting sunlight back onto the forest canopy to the north. I look to the south and see foreboding thunderheads gathering and seemingly making their ponderous way toward the urban sprawl. I may have left a window open and I know I left the dog out. The kids will be home soon, and there's dinner to fix, and I promised Movie Night, and... So much to do...
So I get up from the table, walk across the kitchen, close the window, open the back door for the dog, explore the pantry and refrigerator, consider movie choices, and smile inwardly at my ignorance.
So much to do...
