Ignorance Is Bliss: Why I, a Clean Freak, Learned to Pretend I Hadn't Seen It

The other day, I was riding a train.

The person in front of me casually began picking their nose.

That alone was unpleasant enough, but then, to my astonishment, they wiped the booger onto part of the train’s interior.

Come on. Give me a break.

Naturally, I never wanted to touch that spot again.

But then a thought occurred to me.

Someone might have done the same thing before I boarded. There was no way to know who had wiped what on the train’s handrails or seats.

Even the places I had always touched without a second thought might, in reality, have been quite filthy.

I felt disgusted because I had seen something dirty. If I had not seen it, I would not have thought anything of it.

There is a saying in English: Ignorance is bliss.

The Japanese equivalent is shiranu ga hotoke—literally, “not knowing is Buddha.”

I realized how true that was.

Even Clean Freaks Have Their Limits

I have always been rather particular about cleanliness.

For example, if I need to use a restroom while I am out, I try to find a hotel or a department store.

To be honest, I cannot handle public restrooms. Even if it means going a little out of my way, I would rather use one that is thoroughly cleaned.

But after reaching a certain age, even I came to understand something.

It is impossible to live while avoiding every dirty thing in the world.

How clean are the plates in a restaurant? What did the previous guest do in the hotel bed?

If you start thinking about such things, you will no longer be able to eat out or travel.

In the first place, our sense of cleanliness is not determined solely by actual hygiene.

As the incident on the train showed, it is also greatly affected by what we have seen and what we know.

And this is not just about cleanliness.

The world is full of information that we can do nothing about and that only makes us uncomfortable once we know it.

If we take in every bit of it, we will end up mentally exhausted.

When we are young, we tend to believe that everything should be exactly as it ought to be.

But the real world is not that clean.

Neither other people’s manners nor the way society works will conform to our wishes.

Eventually, I arrived at a very simple way of thinking.

Clean what you can control. As for the rest, sometimes pretend you did not see it.

You can choose a clean restroom. But there is no need to imagine every invisible speck of dirt and deliberately make yourself uncomfortable.

If demanding perfection only makes your own life more restricted, it is better to turn a blind eye to some things.

I think that kind of acceptance is also a form of adult wisdom.

Of course, when someone wipes a booger onto something right in front of you, as happened this time, you cannot exactly pretend you did not see it.

“Ignorance is bliss” is a remarkably accurate saying.

If possible, I wish that person had picked their nose without me knowing about it.