To teach how to
live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is
perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who
study it.” ― Bertrand Russell, A
History of Western Philosophy
It is no surprise
that foregone conclusions are revealed by data supplied by instruments designed
to detect those conclusions. – Thunderbolts Project
“The trouble is
that essays always have to sound like God talking for eternity and that isn’t
the way it ever is….it’s never anything other than just one person talking from
one place in time and space and circumstance.”
- Tom Robbins
I wrote a little about certainty in an earlier post and
since then little synchronicities have kept the concept percolating. This morning I ventured onto Facebook for the
first time in at least a week. After perusing
a few posts I was struck again by how certain people are. I know that these are just snapshots but it
served to trigger a contemplation on my walk this morning. I easily got sidetracked into listing all
the reasons not to draw any conclusions of such speculative evidence. But it is still a curious thing for me these
days.
As my Design and my openness to conditioning are attracted to certainty, I am well versed in the pursuit of certainty and the psychological
(or electromagnetic) need for that certainty.
Or at the very least to appear that I am certain. This path has obliterated any progress I might
have made in that quest. From this
vantage point though I can see much more clearly how pervasive that desire
is. “I don’t know” might be the most
accurate answer but it is not culturally acceptable and definitely not
conversationally provocative.
The pressure to rationalize an answer or come up with a
formula or opinion is a part of our process.
But we also have a tendency to want there to be The Answer or The
Correct Opinion. Then some of us want
to take the idea of the answer to the next level and on and in the pursuit of
The Ultimate Answer. Good luck. I have no idea whether there is one or that
it is obtainable in our form. I am just
letting that part go – I know I don’t have access to it.
We are culturally conditioned to be certain. If you have ever worked in a corporate
office, survival is often predicated as at least appearing that you know the
answer or are capable of coming up an answer.
And it is the best damned answer in the group. But on the more personal level as we dig deeper
past the conditioning we encounter all kinds of answers that we settled on as
certain – usually for protection, a lot of times unconsciously, and maybe some
times just because it is too scary to live in a world that is constantly
mutating, shape-shifting. Coming up
with answers and opinions is important in the mental process. That is the way in which we deal with
inspiration, with understanding our experiences and formulating a pattern out
of the experiences so that we can move forward.
Having an Open Mind (in HD terminology), I have lived
with the inability to consistently come up with an answer or settle on an
opinion or formula. I always assumed it
was a limitation on my part and did the best I could to emulate the process. And intimidated and influenced by the Certain
Mind. But once open to even the idea of the
fluidity of all of this I began to see the preponderance of certainty all
around me. Slowly I am coming to the
point where I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you are absolutely
correct and you somehow have been granted or earned a direct connection to
truth but I just haven’t experienced it. I will just have to wait and see what its
value is to me. I suppose though that
there is still that part of me that wants to be as sure of those answers as
everyone else seems to be.
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