There is an interesting logic to be found in the Buddhist Noble Truths. I am paraphrasing:

Suffering is caused by desire, attachment, and general craving. Eliminating craving reduces our suffering.

Craving decreases by removing its cause. Ignorance is the root cause. Ignorance is a deep-seated cognitive and perceptual blindness that causes beings to misinterpret reality.

Ignorance is an interesting word if you consider this context. There is ignorance in the sense of not knowing, which has the negative connotation of being dumb, and ignorance in the sense of ignoring or not paying attention.

We can ignore things we want to possess, ignore interests we have, so we can focus on the essential things, and ignore things we think we need to know-achieving the most literal form of ignorance. This act of selective ignorance can be liberating, freeing us from the burden of unnecessary information.

This concept of ignorance can also be reframed positively as ‘selective ignorance’ -choosing what to focus on and what to ignore to reduce mental clutter and suffering.

Focus and Ignorance

In our ambitions, we compare ourselves to others. We observe and envy their achievements and judgments. Neither is helpful.

Robert Greene writes in Mastery about how the masters in their fields- the people he writes about in his book- focused on their strengths. This focus on personal strengths empowers them, giving them the confidence to pursue their goals.

…ignore your weaknesses and resist the temptation to be more like others. Instead… direct yourself toward the small things you are good at.

In Advice for Living, Kevin Kelly shares reflective wisdom about worries over other people’s opinions:

Ignore what others may be thinking of you because they aren’t thinking of you.

Attention, Media, and Ignorance

In today’s world, we crave news. Watching the news makes us feel powerless against the deeds of a small number of evil people. We crave better news, more updates. News agencies respond like cigarette manufacturers: they fine-tune their products to our craving needs with negativity bias, sensational headlines, and continuous breaking news.

Oliver Burkeman convinces us in Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals that the media are stealing our attention:

The unsettling possibility is that if you’re convinced that none of this is a problem for you-that social media hasn’t turned you into an angrier, less empathetic, more anxious, or more numbed-out version of yourself-that might be because it has. Your finite time has been appropriated without your realizing anything’s amiss.

We are addicts. But we can help ourselves by exercising ignorance. We can ignore and switch off notifications, consuming news sources less frequently.

We may be better off finding a news source that does not thrive on instantaneity but on the long-term perspective. It will not be free because it is not our attention that pays for these services, but the value they offer to our happiness, which we give money for in return. This shift in perspective can be reassuring, knowing that we are investing our attention in something that truly matters.