Thanks Raul. Your words help me to give myself some credit just for facing areas that are difficult for me. Instead of feeling stupid or wondering why I bother to try to understand, you remind me that it is because I am not afraid to face the reality of my ignorance.
As you say, most do not want to face their ignorance and so may stick to things that come easy to them.
I face my ignorance constantly, so I am always feeling a bit brain dead. While you may be referring to our fearless perceptions of the dismal nature of existence, from birth to death, driven by want and need, facing the dark truths can also be applied to studying mathematics or anything else that may seem overwhelming.
Didn't Colin Wilson mention this somewhere, about how a child may feel upon looking at an advanced mathematics textbook? I still get that feeling, knowing there is only so very little I will ever be able to truly grasp. In a way, that too is one of the nightmarish aspects of our existence.
Many people must go through life avoiding things that will tax their brains too much, hence the great love the masses have for professional sports, gambling, poooornography, cars, cars, cars ...
Hell, when I use to do minor repairs on my Volkswagen, sometimes I would become a bit overwhelmed and filled with doubt. I experienced the same feeling when planting tomatoes and squash, fearing that I did not know what the hell I was doing. I just stuck them in the ground carefully, and they came up fine.
Well, this life fills is all with great anxiety. Nine minutes out of every ten minutes we are suffering from some kind of anxiety. What you have so graciously pointed out is that Holden and I do not pretend we do not suffer from this anxiety, and we resent those who pretend they do not experience it.
That's why we say the world is full of shiit.
People just don't get it. They can't fool us because we know what it means to have been born.
Wedding ceremonies and baby showers make a mockery of the truth.
Maybe people do not like to think too much because this would rob them of their so-called happiness.
Look at my obsession with math. Sure, it is better than drinking myself to death and constantly getting arrested for my bizarre behavior, but down in the nitty gritty details, my daily studies are not at all pleasant. It is mostly a spiritual exercise, as I have said, one that makes me more and more intimate with my own ignorance. I say this only to be honest for I am in no way ashamed of my ignorance. I'm chipping away at it. Others may feel brilliant who never really do too much thinking at all.
Oh well. I will praise intellectual honesty. This is the most necessary quality to get too the heart of our confusion. Before I can learn anything, I have to first be honest about my confusion. Only then might give it some attention.
You know, I haven't been reading much literature lately, but have come to appreciate exercises in textbooks that force me to stop and think (for a few days). Unfortunately, most education experiences do not offer this luxury. It is as though one rushed to get through it to be done with it so as to never have to think about it again, instead of the possibility that most of us are introduced to ideas that we may struggle to understand until we lie stinking in the earth.
Of course, I am stretching the meaning of the word ignorance, where it is very relative.
I used to hang with groups of Mexican laborers in the woods drinking beer ... explaining to them how "stupid" I feel when speaking Spanish. I use the word ignorance in a very personal way, not comparing myself to anyone but my self.
I am easily frustrated by my limitations. Life humbles us all in some manner or another.