Obstinate Ignorance
Obstinate Ignorance fights you on the last train to Auschwitz. Even though you love them they choose not to see. They’d rather talk about the weather or the birds flying by. Or the vork, “Yes! there’s so much vork down there”. “You vait and see”. To the ones who fight and fight you only to one day eventually tell you it was their idea in the first place. Or trusting Formalised Education so much so that you throw out your own intuition. And To the person who told me I couldn’t put a wardrobe in my kitchen. It may have started it’s life as a wardrobe though it doesn’t always have to be. And in some relationships; some treat you like a possession. To the one way conversations who talk at you and not to you. And the greatest obstinate ignorance of them “All Religions”.To me it’s like outsourcing your own mind to the tooth-fairy. Obstinate Ignorance is incredibly lazy also. And nor can you reason with it.
I wrote the above poem a few years ago and it created some consternation in some. I guess it is anti religious . And the voicing of the Jew is based on the Australian actor Johnny Lockwood character Aldo Godolfus from the old Australia TV serial Number 96. As he was the first Jew I’d probably ever heard of. Though he sounded a little more Italian than Jewish. And I probably didn’t see my first Orthodox Jew until I was 22. I guess I could have called this Poem “Intellectual Laziness”; maybe that would have been less offensive. I was only mocking the Vordink. And maybe a fictional character that could be found anywhere in society. Re Auschwitz. Some doth protest too much I think. In the end we are all sensitive about something. We just need to watch the collective sensitivity and selective outrage. I didn’t realise how ignorant I was until I went overseas for the first time. Apart from falling down a Big Rabbit hole in the last few years which has sent me on a big learning curve. I am Fundamentalist Seinfeld fan. It’s the best TV sitcom ever. And all I know is many roads in my education leads to watching Seinfeld. From Uncle Leo antics to Jerry’s last out-take on The Big Salad episode on how to extract revenge. We are all offended and effected by ignorance. We are all human; don’t sweat the small or the easy stuff. Though I do think it’s time the Jewish orthodox woman were allowed to wear the same hats as the men; but only if they chose to do so. I think its time they had a one to one debate on that. Though it’s just one mans opinion or observation. I think the poem was about thinking and trusting yourself and not being manipulated by anything or anyone. I am anti religious. And anti bullying.And all I have is a pen.