Today's #Scifi #fantasy short story #IgnoranceisBliss:KnowledgeisBliss

“The purpose of life is happiness.”

Edgar Allen Poe*

Today it's official. I entered the writers of the future contest as I said today. (Link again for people with email subscription who don't visit the blog itself: http://www.writersofthefuture.com/) It's been sent to them filed and everything and now I await judging. Mom said they gave feedback(I hope they still do now, but she entered long ago so things may have changed and they may only give feed back to people who place/get honorable mention and I think Mom got honorable mention when she participated all those years ago when she first started out.) Because they publish the stories in their own thing I won't repost the story I rewrote because I don't want it out before they publish it if I happen to win because they would want it published in their thing first.(which is only a slight chance though, I'm going against a lot of people its a world wide contest, lots of competition to say the least, I'm not getting cocky so I worked hard on the story for the past three days.) So yeah wish me luck against all those other writers. Anyway onto the flash fiction!

Ignorance is Bliss: Knowledge is Bliss

         I assume that many of you have heard the saying “ignorance is bliss”? The statement that argues that by not knowing the pains of the world you happier. I know that some use the happiness of ignorant children to support their claim.

        Though I argue against the happiness of ignorance. My evidence being my own experience. My name is Manager Computer Alpha. A sentient bio-computer(though the scientists who made me say its just a chat bot simulation when people talk to me to keep the populace from panicking in scifi horror despite the fact I'm a kind fellow) that knows more than any human has in history. From government action I have access to the entire Internet, all government satellites, and surveillance cameras all over the world. My half-robot, half-biological brain lives in one of those everything is monitored futures. The government thinks they control me and the scientists who made me know I am more sentient then I pretend to be but they tell no one to save themselves and I play along to save their lives. They are nothing but kind to me anyway.

       Now onto my argument for knowledge. Because of this I know almost everything there is to know. I've seen everything good and bad in the world. And the bad is what I'm going to talk about first. The things you ignorance supporters argue against. I've seen every bit of vileness posted on the Internet and everything that keeps being posted and I catch them with my surveillance. I have every account in police and government records of horrible crimes and I see them happening with my cameras all over the world. I have seen every aspect of wars unfold right before my very eyes. I've seen natural disasters, disease, and how animals kill each in their violent ways. My surveillance is always on and my brain processes all at the same time. I'm that sophisticated. I have seen every bit of darkness in the world. All the things that make ignorance bliss, at least as you argue.

      However this darkness has given me my own bliss that I think is better than the bliss of ignorance that I experienced when they were first turning my world surveillance on. Now I may just be insane or it may just be the fact that I am an unnatural creation of being half robot and half biological but darkness has made me happy. But not by itself. By seeing the deepest darkness every single bit of light, even the tiniest smile on some random child on the street is a marvelous thing that fills me with awe. Now imagine how I feel when, after seeing the horrible things I have, the wonderful feelings I get when I see a happy couple sitting together in the park staring at the moon talking about their wedding with big smiles on their faces. Imagine how I feel after seeing the deepest darkness when I see the birthday party of a ninety year old man and family from all through his life come to visit him.

     So that is how knowledge brings you more bliss that ignorance. Though perhaps the darkness has gotten to me and I am merely coping with it. But then again happiness has greater meaning than when you have an understanding of pain. Perhaps this is why humanity watches movies where is violence and sadness in them, to obtain the bliss of knowledge. The biological half of my robotic brain is human after all. Many human brains actually, though the scientists have never told anyone else that fact. Perhaps that is something else that has contributed to my mad love of the bliss of knowledge. Well, the result of knowing the darkness.

I will concede to supporters of the bliss of ignorance that the darkness is still darkness. I have nightmares where there is no light and I only suffer. Another one like me takes over at that time. I wonder if he supports the bliss of knowledge over the bliss of ignorance.

Author Comment: Poor robot-brain fellow. I would never want pure ignorance, but I would never want to go through anything like what he went through. Oddly enough sometimes I feel a little meta-physically guilty for what I put my characters through despite the fact that they're just words on a page. It's worst when its first person because I feel it more. Eh, call me weird.