๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ต๐ถ๐น๐จ๐ต๐ช๐ฌ
"๐๐จ๐ญ๐ก๐ข๐ง๐ ๐ฅ๐๐๐ซ๐ง๐๐, ๐๐ง๐ ๐๐ฏ๐๐ซ๐ฒ๐ญ๐ก๐ข๐ง๐ ๐๐จ๐ซ๐ ๐จ๐ญ๐ญ๐๐ง!"
In Jared Diamondโs The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal, he alludes to ignorance towards evolution and history by discussing the Dutch explorer, Arthur Wichmann.
Arthur Wichmann led the first official Dutch expedition into New Guinea in 1903: The North New Guinea Expedition. Wichmann compiled the history of New Guinea explorations into a treatise, which he had ended withโโNothing learned, and everything forgotten!โ
Jared Diamond discussed this powerful conclusion in the following excerpt:
โArthur Wichmann, a Dutch explorer and professor, grew disillusioned as he realized that successive explorers committed the same stupidities again and again: unwarranted pride in overstated accomplishments, refusal to acknowledge disastrous oversights, ignoring the experience of previous explorers, consequent repetition of previous errors, hence a long history of unnecessary suffering and death. โฆ Nothing learned, and everything forgotten!โ
If we are to evolve, or to integrate into a more rounded self, the past must not be understated or overshadowed by the present. All of history and prior humanistic shortcomings and successes possess truth and knowledge if you look to them free of ignorance and ego.
Existence in a modern age does not guard one from universal dynamics like human error or ego-attachment. Linking ones thoughts and feelings with ignorance is an ego-attachment of superiority. To free your mind of thisโto learn and to rise a more integrated humanโlook to the past, and all experience, beyond ego-attachments.
Human ego is illusory, but it possesses a surprisingly strong and emergent force. Quick responses of ignorance arise in many formsโrejected and retained through our experience with the world. In this way, the explorers that Wichmann had saw in the early 1900โs possessed the information, the knowledge, and the experiences to better understand the dangers and cautions of explorationโand yet, they repeated the same failures many times over.
Human experience may be subjective, but it doesnโt exist in a vacuum. Ask yourself: What are you ignorant to? Does it hold weight or substance, or does your ego prop them up through false comfortability?
Seek to integrate information from as many sources as you can, and understand that informed actions are necessary to realize idealistically aimed outcomes.
Consciousness streams all of humanity. To move with ignorance is to walk in opposition to that stream. Where is the collective truth to be had? Where is it to be learned from?
Aim towards truth. Look to all experience as lessons to be perfected through transcendental integrative proaction. In this way, you will move free of ignorance; free to experience unclouded and disillusioned.
Ignoring via ego is to stumble where others have already fallen.
Instead, move with awareness to awaken and stride with what history holds between the lines.