Observations From the Spectrum

I view the world through the blinders of an 82 VW Van driving, Jack Russell owning, ultramarathon running, Vegetarian American living in Turkey. What do your blinders see? The truth is a weird thing. When we are kids, it is clearly black and white and then we learn about Santa Claus and the Easter bunny and suddenly the world becomes grey. Since the beginning of time man has searched for Truth: a reason as to why we are here and why we have been given the gift of free thought. In doing so we have invented religion and science, fought wars and enabled the everyday man to believe that they have the answer.
Truth is like mercury. The tighter the grip, the more liquid it becomes and that’s why it is so hard to define. Primary documents of civilization lay out strong baselines as to how to live by the truth, but it is still as elusive as the wild jackalopes of Colorado. Why is this? Two reasons, one is exceptions to the rule and the other is horse blinders for humans.
Let’s start with the exceptions to the rule. Murder is a pretty easy one. Murder is illegal everywhere but war is legal and practiced across the globe. Stealing is illegal yet known financial conspirators go unchecked and free. So how do these exceptions to the rule occur. We wear blinders.
Jockeys force race horses to wear blinders in order to keep the horse’s focus on the race. Yesterday, churches and countries did this in the form of religions and nationalism. Both being designed to force its wearers to see only one truth and I think this is where the problem lays.
Immanual Kant tried to work around this problem by suggesting that there is a moral imperative for the human condition and that Truth can be found there. That we are all moral beings and therefore required to follow moral law. I agree to an extent but only within reason. 🙂
I think the problem with the Truth is that some people forcibly believe that they are right and that in them being right, others are wrong. Social Media and binaries have certainly compounded this problem. We all have Blinders on and we believe that our view is the Truth and that the others are lies. I don’t agree.
Number one, one person’s right can be another person’s wrong. Two, those in power who we allow to define Truth are still not God or gods. Any person of faith who has strong beliefs that puts his or her opinions over someone else’s is playing God. They believe that their Truth superimposes everyone else’s.
Ask yourself what Truths are you blindered by? Take one and deconstruct it to understand and accept the opposite. Doing this would certainly lead to a more empathetic happy world. Stop seeing the world through your blindered Truth and figure out how to look through the lens of someone else’s.