We have the five senses, or at least
many of us do. Through trauma and what we call 'bad luck” some of
us miss one or two of these gifts. However, we don't 'see' the world
through our five senses, as much as through our one other sense:
reason. This sense we do not come by naturally, nor do all of us
develop it, nor even take it out for “walks”. It is the one
sense that will wither and die from misuse. Yet it is our only
method of attempting to find some sort of order in the chaos about
us.
What do we all want to know? There are
many things, of course, but one commonly wished for knowledge is
'what is going to happen next?'. The answer is, of course,
unknowable, which makes it just that much more terrifying. This is
related to the question: 'What is death?', again, completely
unknowable.
We develop belief systems to fill this
void, this crack in the dam that keeps chaos from being what it is:
the stark reality that every thing is foreign. We should not forget
that these systems are by definition, beliefs and not true
knowledge, however, if we want to keep our 'vision' clear. This
does not disparage these systems or faiths, but in my opinion, makes
them far more valuable. They speak of something precious: hope. The
most common human failing here is to leap to the conclusion that our
belief system is infallible. It reminds me a bit of the event one
sees in films, when there is a 'security breach' and the doors and
windows roll shut with steel curtains. We naturally fear the loss of
hope, I think. We refuse to see that life is, in fact,
incomprehensible. At this point comes the loss of faith. It is no
longer faith, when belief systems become a pseudo-knowledge. In
this case, one views his or her existence through the pin-prick in
the cardboard, protected from the glare of what is really out there.
I think it is incumbent upon us to keep
our eyes open. This is our life, and we should not shut it out with
pretense. We can admit that we do not know. This is not a test in
school, it is the gift of the experience of living a life on the
world, and in the world. We can look at a rainbow and know that it
is visible light that is refracted into our visible spectrum as well
as the spectrum we can not see, and yet we can still wonder at its
time-stopping beauty. We can look at the stars and know that they
are gravitational masses of matter, made up primarily of nothing, and
what we are looking at is older than, in some cases, our own planet.
Yet, they seem to be able to pour into us this thing we call
'beauty', which is so very close to love, it can make ones eyes
respond with tears.
Systems which lock us into a type of
loop thinking, in which everything verifies our locked doors and
barred windows, rob us of our very existence, just as a prison cell
robs a person of his or her liberty. When we say 'challenge
authority' do we mean it? Or do we just mean, 'challenge their
authority'? If it is the first of these, then we have kept our minds
available, if it is the second, that door is not really open.
Children can drive adults mad, by
asking one simple, human question: why? We somehow fear telling
them the truth: we just don't know. Some of us react in anger and
tell them to stop asking. I think this is cowardice. We have a duty
to each other that was handed to us by all those who came before. We
did not get here on our own. A child understands this, why do we
forget? Why can't we say we don't know, and “Please, if you can
find out, will you let me know?” Don't ever stop asking. We must
recognize that we know so little and there is so much to learn, that
it can not be done in one lifetime. We are eternal students. We
should not drop out, while we still draw breath.
