Question

article on ignorance is bliss

Answer 1

So I did a little digging about the origin of the phrase and discovered Thomas Gray's famous poem.  There, he nostalgically reminisces about the bliss of youth with its carefree days of playfulness unmarred by the dark realities of adult life.  The poem reveals Gray's double perspective that not only is ignorance bliss but knowledge is misery.

So what does psychoanalysis have to say about this apparent contrast?  It is a kind of splitting, I think, in which we remember what we once had as better than it was and we relate to what we do have as worse than it is.  Is childhood really all that blissful?  And is adulthood really all that miserable