The Pleasure Of Not Finding Things Out

All of you would agree with me that we find it absorbing and rivetting to solve puzzles,be it crossword or world problems. We say that we find them 'stimulating' and it gives us a great amount of satisfaction, a sense of achievement , when after battling for a long time with pen and paper, we come up with anwers or solutions.

What is about these puzzles and questions that we find so interesting? Why do they stimulate us, at all? Don't you think that evolution has favoured our capacity and ability to find pleasure, a 'pleasure sensation' in finding things out? It infact has, that is for sure.

Buts it is not quite this pleasure that I wish to draw your attention to, but rather the exact opposite of it - The pleasure of not finding things out.

Haven't we all came across questions or puzzles that could never be solved?
How did we react to it- Once we learnt that it can't simply be solved by us (or anybody, for that matter) , we pass it on to others.

I dont just believe that we have all evolved to better solve puzzles, but also have evolved in a way that we tend to keep unsolved ones alive - alive in our memory and alive in our culture. Which means our brains have evolved not just to to give emotional/harmonal rewards on solving puzzling questions but also to retain them in memory and passing it on to others. Evolution might have favoured this tendency because it found that having answers to such questions, helped us survive better. Such animals were better equipped to survive because every puzzle of nature that they solved , increased their knowledge base. Everytime man faced with a new piece of information, he tried to resolve the contradictions within the sum total of the information that we had before stumbling across the new piece. With a larger knowledge base he could organize more information and further expand his knowledge.

So an animal aware of an unsolved puzzle had a better future that the animal which is not aware of the puzzle at all.

Soon the amount of information and knowledge that made up this culture of survival became so large that the investment of energy and risk needed to cross this knowledge barrier to a higher level, beacame unaffordable. The brain's ability fell into a strange predicament- a trouble hitherto unknown- complacency and stagnation.

Many of the questions that we had then, we call- the Eternal Questions. Questions like- how are the seasons created, where does the sun go after it sets, does nature have a controller, where do we come from, Is there a God, Who am I, Why am I, so on and so forth- are questions / puzzled raised as we move from one Knowledge strata to another. It is this state of human mind, this state of culture that gave rise to religion- dogmas and superstitions, blind faith and blind beliefs.

Only an extraordinary mind, a brave sceptic could break out of the shakles of religion and take the human mind to the next level. It is this mind that we salute and show our gratitude to- and many such minds that would follow- Socrates, Aristotle, Leonardo da Vinci,Galileo, Isaac Newton, Fraraday, Darwin.... the real heroes.

So whenever we realize that we, consciously or sub consciously, are finding some pleasure in knowing and remembering the unknown and unsolved, we must immediately shake ourselves out of the dream- of complacency and stagnation- to struggle our way towards the solution- to the next level- to a level where in lies the future- a hope for better life- and ofcourse- A Pleasure unsurpassable by any other.

Kunidu Kunidoo Bare ... ( Mungaru Male Lyrics )

(I post the complete lyrics of my favourite song from the kannada film Mungaru Male for readers who cannot read kannada like me but can understand and speak fluently.... So Simply Enjoy Maadi.. )

Kunidu Kunidoo Bare, Olidu Olidu Baare
Kunida ninna mele, maleya haniya male
Jeevake jeeva tandavale, Jeevakinta saneha baare
Olave vismaya,Olave vismaya....
Ninna prema rupa kandu naanu tanmaya...

Huchchu huduga neenu, bichchi helalenu
Jeevake rekke tandavane, Baanigere haaruva baare
Olave vismayaa .....

Irulalli neene-ellu mai muridare, nanagelli naviraada ho-kampana
Kannalli Nee Kannittu baraseledare, maatilla kateyilla bari romanchana

Ninna kannatumba , irali nanna bimba, Hoovige valava tandavane, parimaladalli araluva baaro,
Olave vismaya....

Oolave neen-Oliva kshana-dindale, ee bhoomi, ee baanu hosadaagide
kushiyinda ee manavella hoovaagide, bere enu bekilla neen-illade

Kunidu Kunidu Bare, Olidu Olidu Baare
Kunida ninna mele, maleya haniya male
Jeevake jeeva tandavale, Jeevakinta saneha baare
Olave vismaya,Olave vismaya....
Ninna prema rupa kandu naanu tanmaya...

Huchchu huduga neenu, bichchi helalenu
Jeevake rekke tandavane, Baanigere haaruva baare
Olave vismayaa...