Ideas and Understanding

I was recently reading a great poem titled “The Intellectuals” by Willaim Pillin. William Pillin was a potter and poet based in the USA. He was born in Ukraine and fled the country due to turmoil. He had seen a sorrowful and tough life. It is important to understand his background before understanding his poem.

“The Intellectuals” is a two-part poem. The poem’s first part deals with the idea of intellectuals and the poet’s disdain towards them. The poem discusses the abstract and confusing musings of the “intellectuals” and why their ideas don’t appeal to the common man. These ideas are, in the poet’s opinion, blurry and meaningless. The poet views the intellectuals as tryhards who want to prove their intellect.

In the second part, the poet addresses his son. The poet does not want his son to join the field of theories and intellect but rather live a simple life that is practical and based on choice. The poet thinks there is no need for intellect to live a better, meaningful life.

This poem intrigued me. What makes the poet think so? Is the poet correct? Are intellectuals confusing the masses out of their own weird idiosyncrasies? The poet had gone through a lot, and it is easy to imagine that the poet thinks so because of personal experience. The poet had seen enough of wars to conclude that a simple life is the best life. And for most of us, that is true. People do embrace simplicity as their guiding way of life. There is nothing wrong with that.

However, I am here to save the stained image of intellectual ideas. When people look at intellectual ideas as confusing and puzzling, it is not the fault of the ideas. Ideas per se, are not meant to be confusing, rather it is understanding of the ideas. People don’t understand ideas, leading to a simplistic and individualistic outlook on life. Biases and personal experiences may act as a smokescreen between us and ideas.

Humans tend to simplify things, and when we do, we look at everything from one lens, our lens. But it is important to look at the bigger picture and understand what is really meant by the ideas.

Understanding an idea not only requires an open mind but also an analytical mind. Observation of the idea at first glance is not the whole picture. We need to evaluate ideas, ponder over them and compare them to our ideas. This juxtaposition of ideas and opinions leads to breakthroughs. We need to reflect upon ideas and conclude what is right for us.

The last step to fully understanding an idea is simplicity! We can simplify ideas and explain them in such a manner that is easily understood by all. The best way of testing our understanding is by explaining. As a famous saying goes- “If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.” That is the key to a true understanding of an idea.

The problem lies not with ideas, but those who preach them, the intellectuals. Instead of benefiting humanity, they end up confusing us because they don’t know what they are saying themselves. That is the truth of the intellectual side of things.

The relationship between ideas and understanding is a close one. The masses must decipher between the problem with the idea and the problem with understanding the idea. As for the “intellectuals”, I think they should help themselves before helping humanity!

(The author is a student of Humanities at DPS Srinagar)