Paganini and Evilness

There’s a common logic that people resort to when they don’t understand something. Because they lack knowledge, and can’t fathom how one could have the requisite understanding, they label the unknown as evil. Evil can be defined as the lack of knowledge, but just because the knowledge has been created doesn't mean it's known or can be apprehended by every person.

A child that doesn't know how to tie their shoes can be frustrated in a similar way as an adult that doesn't know how to maintain their finances properly– especially if the problem persists. The resulting suffering is real despite the knowledge already existing in the world to succeed at both. Each can be accomplished with the right resources and a little bit of practice, but our ignorance can feel like a mounting cloud of darkness that actively pulls us into a hell rather than it being mere exasperation. And this sense is more common than we’re probably likely to admit.

It was believed by enough people at one point that Niccolò Paganini sold his soul to the devil to play the violin as well as he did. It seemed more rational to explain the phenomenon via supernatural entities than it did anything else. The knowledge he had was so incomprehensible that the average person was at an intellectual loss.

One can only assume these kind of irrationalities though if they have an initial belief that doesn't allow for them to conceive of alternate explanations. Beliefs that put knowledge out of reach despite the evidence of virtuosity in front of their very eyes. What else, then, do we slap the label of evilness on when it is only our perceptions that are limiting us from knowing and understanding the data that rains down on our consciousness?

By referring to supernatural explanations (which are easy to vary theories) we only state the world is incomprehensible, because we push the explanation beyond what can be known (aka what is falsifiable). As a result, we inevitably herald in ignorance and make knowledge inherently unattainable. It is no surprise that the Paganini's of the world seem like they could only have unrighteously meddled in the eternal. Who hasn’t felt Beelzebub mock them as they try and learn to tie their metaphorical shoe? How else can one explain the injustice than to blame a catch all and ever morphable concept?