Ignorance is Bliss

I’ve been doing quite a bit of learn­ing lately. Pho­tog­ra­phy, light­ing, Por­trait retouching, how to pose mod­els. Would you like to know what I’ve learned? I’ve learned that I was hap­pier when I didn’t know some of the things I’ve learned. Igno­rance is bliss. Sure, you may feel con­fu­sion because you don’t know how to do some­thing, but that is nowhere nearly as frus­trat­ing as going online and get­ting upset when you see things that are “wrong” in your own pho­tos, or those of oth­ers. If you really want to put a cherry on it, read all the com­ments that say “Great photo!” when you know it’s a piece of crap. It has to be, because every­thing in it is wrong.

You can’t imag­ine the hor­ror I’ve witnessed:

• Poses with no accent leg
• Canoe­ing in the eyes
• Women try­ing to look seduc­tive with their head tilted back
• Light­ing that casts shad­ows on both sides of the subject
• No pores!

Those are just the prob­lems with my pho­tos. Then there are the con­ver­sa­tions on the Inter­net. Peo­ple speak with author­ity repeat­ing the same thing that some­one told them, never know­ing that what they’re say­ing isn’t really true. They use words like “spec­u­lar” with­out know­ing what it means. It makes me angry. Then it makes me cry.

Why, oh why did I ever bother learn­ing these things know­ing that the rest of the world wouldn’t bother? It’s fool­ish to have knowl­edge when most peo­ple are sat­is­fied with “com­mon knowl­edge.” It’s bet­ter to be wrong with friends than right by yourself.

Heed my warn­ing or share my suf­fer­ing. It’s bet­ter to be one of the igno­rant masses than the intel­lec­tual élite. Don’t learn. Don’t try to improve your­self. Just hang­out with every­one else and be like every­one else. If you take time to learn, you just may dif­fer­en­ti­ate your­self from others…and that would be Hell.