"Nothing's Going To Change My World"

Jai guru deva om
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
---"Across the Universe", The Beatles

About a year ago I heard a pretty shocking thing about a very important event from a person who was uniquely in a position to know. I told my then-boyfriend about what I had heard. He said he believed it, but he'd rather not know. He said it was distasteful to even know. That it was wrong to know or talk about or speculate on. He said there are truths in this world that are by their very definition "bad" to know.

And he didn't say this in an ironic way, like he was criticizing the prevailing belief system. No, what he was saying was that he completely and consciously bought into that belief system, and HE DID NOT WANT TO KNOW ANYTHING DIFFERENT, fingers in his ears, "nahnahnahnah, I can't hear you, nahnahnahnah..."

These things are "bad" to know  because they so shake our little hermetically-sealed universes, challenge our belief systems, make us feel patently uncomfortable. They are threats to our identity, our perceived place in the world. They shake Ego. And so the Earth stays flat, and baby Jesus is born on Dec. 25 in that manger, and everything we read in the history books is true. And our bodies are nothing more than meaningless organic machines born of absurdity, or better yet, the property of Jehovah.

A friend of mine always described this mentality as "warm blanket." Nothing beats being wrapped in a soft, warm blanket. Ask Linus.