Ignorance Is No Bliss: 10 Ways to Finding Your True Identity & Purpose

By Lual Nyang Nyak and Raymond Aaron

This book, Ignorance Is No Bliss, deals with ten critical areas of life: Time, identity, spirituality, health, relationships, finances, work, laws, legacy, and the deceptive tool of food & entertainment. Ignorance is general term that applies to many things in our universe, big and small. You may be ignorant about the newest fashion or social media craze, but can you afford to be clueless about your health? There are more than 34 lifestyle diseases that are affecting many people simply because they are ignorant about it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 15, 2024
• ISBN: 9781772776119

Book preview

Introduction

My Story

Where do I begin? Why am I writing about Ignorance?

My name is Lual Nyang Nyak. I was born in present-day South Sudan in a small village called Bukteng, but I grew up in Ethiopia and went to school there. From Ethiopia, I ended up in a refugee camp in Kenya, where I had the opportunity of a lifetime to migrate to the United States of America at the age of 16.

Growing up, I never thought anything about the world beyond my tribe, clan, subclan, and subsection. As little kids, we would call every plane that streaks across the sky, America, not because we know America exists as a country, but rather because we thought word America is the name of the airplane.

My Identity Confusion

"I am not an Athenian, nor a Greek,

but a citizen of the world."

Socrates

South Sudan has 64 tribes, my tribe, the Nuer tribe is split between two countries: Ethiopia and South Sudan. As a child, I did not know if we were Sudanese or Ethiopian because we had family on both sides of the border. I grew up in Ethiopia. If I remember correctly, there were no tangible borders or significant landmarks to tell us we were in Ethiopia until I lived in Itang. The civil war in Sudan forced many Sudanese to Ethiopia at that time, and Itang was set up as a refugee camp.

My identity confusion did not come from not knowing what country I was from; but it came from my tribe categorization and subcategorization. The Nuer tribe has clans, subclans, sections, and subsections associated with villages with occasional deadly infighting. I would likely confuse you if I named my clans, subclans, subsection, and their connection to the village I came from. I will try not to confuse you with more ways the Nuer used to ensure they were to be accurately identified. For example, the Nuer used facial markings. Six facial markings across the forehead, to be exact. When you are a grown man and do not have those marks on your forehead, you are not considered a ‘man’ and no woman will marry you. That is how it was when I was a child. That is not the case now.

Without facial markings, you could not use certain words or phrases when talking to men who had the six facial markings. This was the case even if they were your age mates, relatives, or friends. Otherwise, you would find yourself encircled by elders and other strong men to beat you up. Such intervention from others would be described as teaching you a lesson.

Mind you, such a teaching moment can be deadly if you happen to be a strong person yourself, because the elders don’t use fists but traditional polished sticks to beat you up.

As a kid, those traditions and expectations were fine with me. After all, my daddy, and his daddy before him were both blacksmiths and skill masters who engraved the six linear markings on the men’s foreheads. The markings were done as a rite of passage for boys entering manhood.

Aspiring boys would travel from afar to our village to seek out my father to perform the rite of passage for them. It is usually done in a group ceremony. Up to 10 boys would go through the rite of passage together, and my father would be paid in goats, sheep, cows, or grains.

The process was intense. It was technically a surgical procedure that required knowledge and skill to perform. A lot of blood is usually lost because the knife my father used goes deep into the skull. The boys would be kept in one hut or tukul, fed, and looked after until the scars healed, graduating to manhood. It was a major milestone.

During the healing time, the boys—I mean the men—would be in isolation. No women, girls, or boys would come close to them. In the evening, when they would go out to the river, they would chase and beat any uninitiated boys, girls, and young women coming near.

It was a normal and expected display of the transition from boys to men. There was no confusion in those days in the Nuer land when you transitioned from boy to man. Many tribes in South Sudan and beyond were, and some still are, deep into these practices.

With six horizontal marks on your forehead, you are forever a Nuer man. When a person from another tribe sees you, they know exactly what tribe you come from. It becomes your identity. Even the skull of a dead Nuer man can be identified by this marking.

When I was 5 or 6 years old, my father and our neighbor in Bukteng had a quarrel over the border of our land and their land. The neighbor told my father, You don’t belong to this village, and your forefathers don’t even belong to the Nuer tribe, the clan, and the subclan.

He also used derogatory language to describe my father as less important in Nuer society. He called my father Jang, which is a term used to describe people captured from another tribe as slaves before being assimilated into the tribe. And Diel is a term that describes a supposed true Nuer, considered a badge of honor.

Playing with other children, we call ourselves Gatdila, which means the true son of Nuer, the best of the best. Until that day when my daddy confronted our neighbor, I thought I was a true Nuer, a Gatdila. For some weird reason, hearing someone call me Gatdila was so important.

I do not know how my daddy perceived that interaction, but it somehow affected me. I became conscious of my identity and became sensitive when people started calling themselves Gatdila, GatKiir, Gatyiel," and so forth. These are pet names to remind people of their lineage and their level of importance.

I later discovered that my great-grandfather was from a subsection of Nuer called Gon of Lou Nuer with Dinka lineage. Dinka are Nuer’s distant cousins, but both tribes have been carrying on a useless rivalry for a long time, with devastating effects.

My other exposure to identity ignorance was in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. Ethiopia has more than 80 tribes, with Nuer being one of those tribes. In the early 90s, many Ethiopians living in the capital of Addis Ababa, looked down on the people of the Gambella region. I remember walking down the street when a group of people started calling us derogatory names, pulling grass, spitting on it, and throwing it our way while saying, Gabrielli, please forgive me. I did not see them. Gabrielli refers to the angel Gabriel in the Bible. I guess seeing a very dark person was some sort of bad luck for them.

An innocent walking with friends turned into blood and bruises after an intense rock-throwing fight that almost led to death. This, and other incidents left me in a dark state of confusion with many questions about my true identity. These ordeals stirred in me a desire to discover the reasons behind all this craziness, but at that time, no one had an answer for me.

When I landed in Portland, Maine, in the United States of America as a teenager, I also ran into the same pattern of ignorance; however, by this time, we were forewarned by our social worker at the refugee settlement office. It was disappointing but at least I was prepared.

Coming to America was exciting, and full of possibilities in comparison to the many years of living in a refugee camp in Africa. Still, I truly did not know who I was or what my purpose in life was until I met a Bible worker named Janet, a White woman who introduced me to the Bible and treated me like a son. The unconditional love I received from her, and the biblical guidance I discovered, led me to attend a university in Michigan, where I met my second mom and a father, Dean and Elene Hunts. After leaving the university, I returned to Maine and lived with my third mother, Coral Hume, and her daughter, Jennifer, who are white but love me beyond color.

I am telling these stories to demonstrate that ignorance, which is not knowing, is the enemy of humanity. It is not the devil.

I am also telling my experience because my exposure to unconditional love from people other than my tribe or race led me to see myself as God sees me—a child of God. We are not limited to what we see in our physical form. Our name or skin color. You and I are not what we see in our physical form. I am not a name or a skin color. Lual is a name given to me by my parents. The question I continue to ask myself is, if Lual is a name given by my parents to describe me, and my skin color is just a physical manifestation of my unseen self, then who am I? Have you ever asked yourself that question? The world needs to ask this question to stop the madness and ignorance.

In a critical period of my life, God sent prophetic voices through Janet, Coral, Nell Davies, the Hunts, and Madeline Upshaw, to name a few. Their deeds of kindness, love, and acceptance propelled me to discover my true identity in God.

This book, Ignorance Is No Bliss, focuses on the areas of life I promised myself not to be ignorant about. If we must live a life of fulfillment, we cannot afford to be ignorant about our identity, spiritual nature, health, relationship, vocation, finances, time, or spiritual and relational laws that govern the universe, such as mentoring, and legacy.

What comes to your mind when you hear the word ignorance? Ignorance in plain language means not knowing. It is not an insult. It simply means you do not know something. Ignorant people are not stupid. They just do not know or do not understand what they have not yet learned.

A stupid person is a person who knows or understands something but fails to act on it. A stupid person knows how to do right but chooses to do the wrong things anyway.

Ignorance also differs from arrogance, which is an exaggerated sense of one’s importance. An arrogant person believes that he or she is better than everyone else. Ignorance is only the mere lack of information, knowledge, understanding, or education.

Ignorance can be categorized in three ways: factual ignorance (absence of knowledge of some fact), object ignorance (unawareness of some object), and technical ignorance (absence of knowledge of how to do something).

Ignorance is No Bliss

Have you ever heard the phrase, Curiosity killed the cat? It is a proverb that warns of the dangers of unnecessary investigation or experimentation. It also implies that being curious can sometimes lead to danger or misfortune.

Bobby was a happy person. He always smiled and laughed and enjoyed life. He did not care about anything that did not affect him directly. He ignored the news, politics, problems, and the dangers of the world. He thought ignorance was bliss.

One day, he decided to go on a vacation. He wanted to visit a tropical island to relax on the beach. He did not do any research or planning. He just booked a flight and hotel online and packed his bags. He thought he was being spontaneous, but he was really being careless.

He arrived at the airport and boarded the plane. He did not check his ticket or his passport. He just followed the crowd and sat in his seat. He thought he was being easy going, but he was really clueless.

He realized he had boarded the wrong plane when he heard the announcement: Welcome aboard flight 123 to Antarctica. We hope you enjoy your trip to Earth’s coldest and most remote continent.

Bobby was shocked and confused. He had no idea how he had ended up on that plane. He had no interest or intention of going to Antarctica. He had no clothes or equipment for the harsh weather and terrain. He thought he was going to a tropical island, but he was really going to a frozen wasteland.

He tried to get off the plane, but it was too late. The doors were closed, and the plane was taking off. He had no choice but to stay on board and hope for the best.

He arrived in Antarctica and got off the plane. He felt a blast of cold air, and snow hit his face. He shivered and trembled and wished he had a coat and gloves. He looked around and saw nothing but ice and snow. He thought he was in hell, but he was really in Antarctica.

He tried to find his way back to the plane, but it was gone. It had left him behind