We must always tell what we see.  Above all, and this is more difficult, we must always see what we see. Charles Peguy

Ignorance and apathy feed on each other. “Don’t worry about it, everything will be okay” is what you tell a child to soften the pain of loss. It is a coping mechanism for a world that’s simultaneously ugly and beautiful. To get through a sometimes difficult life Bobby McFerrin and Bob Marley gave us two memorable songs that utilize this advice. There are times when “don’t worry, be happy” and “every little thing gonna be aright” is absolutely essential to your mental health. But, and this may be more difficult to accept, there are times when this common coping mechanism comes back to bite you in the butt.

Don’t Worry Be Happy by Bobby McFerrin is a song about what to do when things get ugly. The lyrics speak for themselves.

In every life we have some trouble

But when you worry you make it double

Ain’t got no place to lay your head

Somebody came and took your bed

The landlord say your rent is late

He may have to litigate

Ain’t got no cash, ain’t got no style

Ain’t got no gal to make you smile

Don’t worry, be happy

Don’t worry, be happy (Hey, I’ll give you my phone number, when you worry, call me, I’ll make you happy

Put a smile on your face

Don’t bring everybody down like this

Don’t worry, it will soon pass, whatever it is

Don’t worry, be happy

I’m not worried

I’m happy

Bob Marley in Every Little Thing’s Gonna Be Alright says don’t look at the ugly side of life, focus on how beautiful life is and then you will realize that “every little thing’s gonna be alight.”

Don’t worry about a thing.

Rise up this morning, smiled with the rising sun

Three little birds pitch on my doorstep

Singing sweet songs of melodies pure and true

Saying, “This is my message to you-ou-ou”

Singing, “Don’t worry about a thing

‘Cause every little thing gonna be alright”

The poet Thomas Gray says the same thing in another way: “Where ignorance is bliss, ‘Tis folly to be wise.” Better to be ignorant and happy rather than face a painful truth.

Such a coping mechanism may be uplifting but is it good advice? Most of us can agree that excessive worry is unhealthy. On the other hand a happy go lucky lifestyle, not worrying at all, can make you unprepared to face the common challenges of life. It can make those who want to take advantage of you see you as naive and easy to fool. Closing your eyes to difficult realities can hinder your personal growth and achievement and prevent you from achieving your best. The key is finding the right balance between outright denial of what’s right in front of your eyes and excessive worry about things you cannot change.

Ignorance and apathy can make you vulnerable to charlatans that engage in hyperbole, lying and making things up. The more complicated and chaotic life becomes, the more likely people are to choose ignorance and apathy. This is just the opposite to how to be. When life is simple and predictable the costs of ignorance and apathy are relatively low. When life is complicated and chaotic the benefits of knowing and choosing are high. This is the reason dictators and tyrants thrive in periods of chaos and why they want to control the means of knowing (education) and choosing (free speech and the right of assembly).

Not to pick solely on the dictators and tyrants, some of whom “may be very fine people.” Those at the other end of the ignorance and apathy scale, that is those who don’t know and don’t care and thus get taken advantage of, they can be angry and impulsive and dangerous when they finally realize what’s going on. We have a song for that too in the popular Blue Tail Fly song, President Abraham Lincoln’s favorite. The lyrics are familiar:

Jimmy crack corn an’ I don’t care/Jimmy crack corn an’ I don’t care/.Jimmy crack corn an’ I don’t care/ The Master’s gone away.

One interpretation of the lyrics is that the master went out for a horseback ride and the slave was supposed to follow along and brush away the blue tail flies from the horse. The slave either couldn’t or didn’t brush the flies away and they bit the horse causing the horse to throw the master off into a ditch and break his neck. 

Certainly any master would be better off knowing and caring about what happens when he pushes his people too far just as any slave would be better off knowing and caring about how he is governed, who sets the rules and how those rules might be changed to avoid some of the ugly outcomes of life.

But, then again, Jimmy crack corn an’ I don’t care has a nice ring to it. Lincoln called it “that buzzing song.” So, don’t worry, be happy, everything’s gonna be okay.