Do You Believe Everything You Think?

“I lie to myself all the time. But I never believe me.” -S.E. Hinton

Do you believe everything you think?

Today we have the wisdom of the greatest minds in ourstory at our fingertips, yet it seems there is more confusion and ignorance than ever before. 

I’m beginning to remember that belonging is more important to many than truth. A glance at the history of religions certainly shows that about us.

What do you know? 

I once started to tell my teacher, I feel like, and she interrupted me sharply. 

Who cares what you feel? What do you Know!? 

Kinda harsh, yes, but how much of our time are we swept about in the watery tides of feeling without realizing how unmoored we are in reality.

Question reality, for that matter. 

Actually many of us are all too willing to do that. The interweb is brimming with wacky pseudo science that caters to our preference for so called realities that confirm our preconceived biases, fantasies, and fears. It is almost as if one can find some thought to be true and valid upon the mere evidence that someone else out there has also had the same thought and posted it. Anyone else. Especially if they can make dramatic videos about it.

“The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.” -Niels Bohr

Nor does science itself seem to be immune to this problem. Our culture and institutions, and thus, the internet too, is an echo chamber of convention, even though every now widely accepted notion started out as someone’s heretical theory. Question authority.

Can you believe what you hear? 

Can you always believe what you read? 

Can you think for yourself? 

Can you even believe what you think? 

No, heck no, I wonder, and I hope not. 

“The reason I talk to myself is because I’m the only one whose answers I accept.” -George Carlin

There is just too much technical information available now for anyone to know all of it in any subject, much less so in general. There is more information in any field than any one person can know, much less intelligently process.

So this leads some to throw up our hands and just say, hey, we create our own reality, by choosing what we would like to believe. Actually there is some validity to this. We have a limited amount of time and attention, so whatever we pay our attention to is for us, on some level reified. It can and does affect and change how we feel, and so how we act, and so does it change the world.

“I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?” -John Lennon

Just because it is true, do you have to believe it? 

Does believing it make it true for you? 

No, and maybe, to some extent.

So truth is sure starting to sound squishy now. 

So does all this mean that we are doomed to be forever fighting over the most basic facts? Oh Goddess, l hope not. But I also do not want to return to the days, the long dark centuries, of just accepting what those in power over us tell us to think.  

There does seem to be some collective wisdom rising from this massive interweb induced sharing of our minds, sometimes known as crowd sourcing. We know more than I do. We need each other. 

But there is a different kind of wisdom that has to guide you in your moment to moment decisions, which depends on the particulars of the situation. You have to think for yourself.

So maybe truth is not absolute, not hard like a stone statue. Maybe truth is a guiding light, ever receding, never reached. Maybe we are each possessors of truth compasses, inner tools that must be used and constantly recalibrated as the terrain rolls around beneath our steps.

Maybe the light of truth is the sun we orbit, or move toward or away from, according to our choices and whims. And just as two different planets can never be in exactly the same spot at the same time, perhaps the same truth is by definition then, always found in a different direction for each one, due to the differing perspective.

So, what do you Know?

Oh, and how do you know you know?

I wonder...

“The more I see, the less I know for sure.” -John Lennon