Human Ignorance Essay

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Humans live in ignorance, going through life without fully living it. Annie Dillard’s essay “Living Like Weasels” talks about how weasels live following their instinct, whereas humans live their lives by choice. The brevity of life is shown in the play Our Town by Thornton Wilder, when most of the characters die at a young age. Dillard’s brief encounter with the weasel and Emily’s realization of the ignorance of humans, demonstrate the theme of the transience and brevity of life. Weasels, unlike humans, live their lives following their instinct, and are thus fully present every moment of their lives. In her essay Dillard states, “ a weasel lives as he’s meant to, yielding at every moment to the perfect freedom of single necessity”(Dillard). Weasels act in the moment, not thinking of the consequences that their actions will late bring; individuals, on the other hand, think too much. Individuals today do not truly enjoy life because they think more about the future and forget to live in the moment. By not living in the moment like the weasel, Dillard says that she “would like to learn, or remember how to live” (Dillard). Living in a world full of stress, noticing the minor details of life is not something people do. Humans live a life of choice and like weasels, who do not think about consequences of their actions, people too can enjoy life and choose to forget about the consequences. As depicted by Wilder in act three of Our Town, Emily revisits her twelfth birthday following her death in childbirth. Shortly following her burial, Emily decides to revisit her birthday but is not able to relive the entire day. She is only capable of reliving breakfast that morning because she is overwhelmed by ignorant bliss she lived in. She realizes only in death how precious life truly is and how every second of life should be cherished not disregarded. She returns to the dead

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