Welcome back to another Question of the Week here at The Confusing Middle! For those of you who’ve been following along, you know the drill—every Saturday, I crack open Gregory Stock’s The Book of Questions and let it mess with my head (and hopefully yours). We’re now 468 weeks deep into this philosophical rabbit hole, and Stock shows no signs of letting us off easy.

This week’s question is a doozy: Would you like to know your risk for an illness that has no effective treatment? Why?

Well, that’s a cheerful way to start the weekend, isn’t it? Nothing like contemplating your own mortality with your Saturday morning coffee. Thanks, Gregory. Really setting the tone for a productive day.

The Pandora’s Box of Medical Knowledge

Let’s start with what this question is really asking. We’re not talking about knowing you have a 10% higher risk of heart disease, then hitting the gym and swearing off bacon (well, swearing off bacon for about three days until you smell it cooking somewhere). No, this is about the big stuff—the conditions where knowledge doesn’t equal power. It’s about opening an envelope that might fundamentally change how you experience every remaining day of your life, with no ability to change the outcome.

It’s Pandora’s Box, but instead of releasing all the world’s evils, you’re potentially releasing a countdown clock that only you can see.

The question becomes even more complex when you consider what “risk” means. Are we talking about a genetic marker that gives you a 20% chance? 50%? 90%? Because there’s a world of difference between “you might get this” and “you will almost certainly get this.” One is a storm cloud on the horizon that might blow past; the other is a hurricane with your name on it.

The Case for Knowledge (Or: Team “Tell Me Everything”)

I understand the argument for wanting to know. I really do. There’s something to be said for the idea that forewarned is forearmed, even when you can’t actually arm yourself with anything useful. The people in this camp tend to make several compelling points:

First, there’s the practical planning aspect. If you know you have a high risk of developing something debilitating, you might make different life choices. Maybe you take that trip to New Zealand now instead of waiting for retirement. Maybe you have certain conversations with loved ones while you still can. Maybe you create videos for future grandchildren you might not meet. There’s a brutal practicality to this that I can respect, even if it makes my stomach turn.

Then there’s the argument about mental preparation. Some people believe that knowing allows them to process, to grieve in advance, to come to terms with their fate. They’d rather have years to accept something than have it blindside them one Tuesday afternoon. It’s like the difference between a scheduled breakup conversation and being ghosted—both hurt, but at least one gives you closure.

There’s also the “living authentically” angle. If you know you have limited time (more limited than the general human condition already provides), maybe you stop wasting it on things that don’t matter. Maybe you quit the job you hate. Maybe you finally write that novel. Maybe you stop pretending to like your brother-in-law’s homebrew beer at family gatherings.

The Case for Ignorance (Or: Where I’ve Pitched My Tent)

But here’s where I land, and I’m setting up camp here with s’mores and everything: ignorance is bliss, at least in this specific scenario.

If there’s genuinely nothing I can do about it—no treatment, no prevention, no magic pill or lifestyle change—then what exactly am I gaining from this knowledge? A VIP pass to Anxiety Town? A lifetime membership to Club Dread? No thank you. I’ll take my regularly scheduled existential crises without the specific medical terminology, please.

Think about what happens the moment you get that information. Every headache becomes a symptom. Every forgotten name becomes the beginning of the end. Every stumble, every muscle twitch, every moment of fatigue gets filtered through the lens of “Is this it? Is it starting?” You’re not living with knowledge; you’re living under a sword of Damocles that you hung there yourself.

And let’s talk about what this does to relationships. How do you tell people? Do you tell people? Do you become the person everyone treats differently, with that horrible combination of pity and discomfort? Do your loved ones start pre-grieving you while you’re still very much alive and trying to enjoy a sandwich? The social implications alone are enough to make me want to remain blissfully unaware.

The Schrödinger’s Cat of Medical Testing

There’s something almost quantum about this whole scenario. As long as you don’t know, you both have and don’t have the risk. You’re living in all possible futures simultaneously. The moment you open that test result, you collapse into one timeline—either the one where you’re fine, or the one where you’re not.

And here’s the kicker: if the test comes back negative, great! You’ve won the lottery! But if it comes back positive for risk, you can’t unknow it. You can’t stuff that knowledge back in the box. It’s like reading spoilers for your own life, except instead of finding out who dies in the next season of your favorite show, you’re finding out it might be you.

The Quality vs. Quantity Argument

Proponents of knowing often argue that they could improve their quality of life with this knowledge, even if they can’t improve the quantity. But I’d argue the opposite. How much quality are you really adding when every good moment is tinged with the thought, “I should really savor this because I might not have many more”?

There’s already enough pressure to “live each day like it’s your last” from motivational posters and Instagram influencers. Do we really need a medical test to add to that burden? I’m exhausted just thinking about the performative meaning-making I’d feel obligated to do. Every sunset would need to be appreciated. Every interaction would need to be meaningful. Every meal would need to be savored. Sometimes a Tuesday is just a Tuesday, and that’s okay.

The Philosophical Dinner Party Question

This is one of those questions that would make for great dinner party conversation (at a very specific type of dinner party—probably not at your kid’s birthday party). It reveals something fundamental about how people approach uncertainty, control, and mortality.

The people who want to know tend to be the same people who read the last page of a book first, who look up movie spoilers, who need to know what’s in their birthday presents. They’re the planners, the controllers, the ones who believe that any information is better than no information.

The people who don’t want to know (my people) are the ones who still haven’t watched the finale of that show from three years ago, who refuse to look at their bank balance after a weekend trip, who believe that some doors are better left unopened. We’re not necessarily optimists, but we understand that sometimes the anticipation of bad news is worse than the bad news itself.

The Reality Check

Here’s what I think it really comes down to: we all know we’re mortal. We all know that something, someday, somehow, is going to be the thing that gets us. It might be sudden, it might be slow, it might be tomorrow, it might be in fifty years. This is the fundamental condition of being human.

Adding specificity to that general knowledge doesn’t make us more prepared; it just makes us more anxious. It’s like the difference between knowing “everyone dies” and knowing “you, specifically, will likely die from this particular thing.” The first is philosophy; the second is a prescription for perpetual panic.

And let’s be honest about human nature here. Even if we knew we had a high risk for something untreatable, would we really make all those meaningful changes people talk about? Or would we just worry more while continuing to scroll through our phones, binge Netflix, and argue about trivial things? I suspect that for most of us, the knowledge would add anxiety without subtracting any of our time-wasting habits.

The Hope Factor

There’s one more element to consider: hope. As long as you don’t know, you can hope. You can hope you’re in the percentage that won’t get it. You can hope that by the time you might get it, there will be a treatment. You can hope that the test would have been wrong anyway.

Hope isn’t just optimism; it’s a survival mechanism. It’s what gets us through difficult times. It’s what makes us try things that might not work. It’s what makes us believe tomorrow could be better than today. Removing hope from the equation—even false hope—seems unnecessarily cruel.

My Final Answer (For What It’s Worth)

So no, I wouldn’t want to know. I’ll take my chances with uncertainty over the guarantee of dread. I’d rather live my life normally, with the standard background level of existential anxiety we all carry, than with a specific sword hanging over my head.

Call me an ostrich if you want, but I’d rather have my head in the sand than in a noose of my own making. Life is already complicated enough without adding “impending untreatable illness” to my list of things to think about at 3 AM.

Besides, knowing my luck, I’d spend thirty years worrying about the thing the test said would get me, only to get hit by a bus looking at my phone while crossing the street. The irony alone would kill me. Well, that and the bus.

Your Turn

Now I want to hear from you. Would you open that envelope? Would you take that test? Are you Team Knowledge is Power, or Team Blissful Ignorance?

Have you faced this decision in real life? How did you handle it? And for those who’ve chosen to know—do you regret it, or was it the right choice for you?

Drop your thoughts in the comments below. Let’s get philosophical about our own mortality—it’s not like we have anything more cheerful to discuss on a Saturday, right?

Until next week, when Gregory Stock will undoubtedly ask us something equally uncomfortable, this is Aaron, still here in The Confusing Middle, still choosing not to know, still believing that some boxes are better left unopened.

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The Question of the Week is a regular series on The Confusing Middle, featuring questions from Gregory Stock’s The Book of Questions. Have thoughts on this week’s question? Leave them in the comments below, and check back next Saturday for another existential adventure.