To Be Cursed with Awareness

To be cursed with awareness may be the greatest curse humanity can face, while ignorance may be its greatest blessing. These fortunate people are aware of nothing; they are indifferent to what happens around them because they do not see the evil unfolding. Like a deaf person living next to a house where people are being tortured—screaming in agony, begging for help… That person is content with life, because they do not hear the cries for help.

For someone who can hear, however, living in that house is torture. Hearing the atrocities happening every day, every hour, yet being unable to do anything gnaws at the soul and consumes the person from within. They rebel against the situation, but it is futile. Because only they hear the sounds. Everyone else goes on with their daily lives, happy and at peace.

What is even worse is that trying to explain that you hear those voices often leads nowhere. Human beings seek peace above all else; they do not want their order disturbed. If they were aware of the noise, they would be obliged to intervene. And if they did not intervene, they too would be disturbed—perhaps even harmed in the process of intervening. So they remain silent, look away, or worse, grow angry at the one who warns them, reacting with hostility. Those who are aware, who warn others, who want to change things, who fight—or attempt to fight—against the system are marginalized and branded as undesirable by both the unaware and those who are aware yet compliant with the system. Awareness may exist inherently within a person, but more often it grows through education, time, and experience. The majority is always a few steps behind these individuals. The fewer the aware individuals in a society, the lower that society’s chances of progress. Because in the system called democracy—where quantity is valued over quality—it is not those with awareness who prevail, but those supported by the unaware. At that point, highly aware individuals have two paths to choose from: either they struggle to raise awareness in society, with a high probability of failure, or they withdraw and watch the approaching storm with sorrow and helplessness. More often than not, those punished with the curse of awareness gradually detach from society and choose solitude.