So, in talking to THE "IS" ;-)... The self-described "pirate hippie" Isabel...
she was fully committed to considering all possibilities for right and wrong, for the human experience...
"How can we know what is right?"
"As human beings, we only see a very small part of the electromagnetic/light spectrum...", she said, "How can we know with certainty that our conclusions, our interpretations are anywhere close to right?"
To Isabel, the world and all of her thoughts are fluid.. always and in all ways...
"I can't stand that.." I thought. " I can't stand not having ABSOLUTE TRUTHS defined. truths from which I can construct my thoughts and my understanding."
AND - I thought, "What an amazing perspective to truly allow everything, every solution set to be possible, fluid, CONSIDERABLE..."
I checked... Human beings can only see 0.0035% of the electromagnetic range... WOW!
And, we walk around so very certain of all that we know - so confident in our believe that we SEE all the needs to be seen... all that CAN BE seen.
Heck! Goats can see 320 - 340 degrees around themselves, boas and pythons can detect infrared light, cats have great night vision, birds can see 3 - 4 times sharper than humans...
How often do we really consider that, ultimately, there is 99.9965% of the electromagnetic spectrum that we don't see... that we CAN'T SEE?
This detail and reality has SO MANY possible insights, metaphors and applications...
But, let's stay with certainty.. certainty of what may be "right".
So, "IS" tells me, "I struggle to know where to start, where to go, even how to think on some level, because it's all possible.. How do we know anything with certainty, if we know with certainty that we know so little."
"OK - enough of that!" I thought... I felt myself disengaging, or at least struggling with the possible uncertainty. I realized that level of uncertainty not only "makes me uncomfortable" but more importantly makes it almost impossible for me to progress - in life - in thinking - in the moment - in harmony.
"I need to know where I stand.", I thought. "I need to know what is TRUE for me to function." ... Even if only momentarily.
AND, so very much of the disharmony that I see in the world comes from people having more certainty than they should, or then they ought to...
SO MUCH of the disharmony comes from people concluding ONE direction or ONE vision of reality to be right and true -
concluding with such certainty that any other form of "right" offends them, unsettles them...
Think religion, politics, abortion, race... even sports, professions, food...
In virtually EVERY aspect of our lives... disharmony comes from FIXING ourselves to a TRUTH or a DEFINITION for "RIGHT" that doesn't fit with everything else... or certainly everyone else.
And, then we FIGHT from that FIXED perspective, we WISH from that perspective and with that CONTEXT...
Maybe, if we were never able to anchor in what is "right", we could live more flexibly, more happily and in greater harmony...
BUT THAT DOESN'T WORK EITHER... because if there is no "RIGHT"... if there is no "TRUE"... there is no place to create the foundation, the gratitude, the DIRECTION of our ACTIONS...
WITHOUT CERTAINTY IN THE MOMENT, WE HAVE NOTHING TO "PUSH OFF" FROM IN THE DIRECTION OF OUR WANT...
It was so clear to me...
so certain and beautiful...
What we lack and what we need in life is MOMENTARY CERTAINTY... Which is what I TRY to have... and the way I TRY to think... Live in the moment... Limit your certainty to the moment.
I am committed in any moment, to what I believe is RIGHT... but I am not committed to it forever... heck, I am not committed to it in the next moment, I am hungry to learn and to redefine my truth... my IS... to better achieve my harmony.
It is a delicate balance, but one that works IF you are truly committed to a life of HARMONY.
Life happens in the moment.
What I know - I know for this MOMENT.
MY "IS"... is the MOMENTARY "IS"...
And, I am
not bold enough,
not arrogant enough
to believe that I know it all...
and in every moment,
I am willing to see the truth in a new way. I am open to seeing MORE, seeing CLEARER and thus, seeing DIFFERENTLY.
It has allowed me to PIVOT in key moments in life in meaningful ways.
It has allowed me to EVOLVE in life in exciting ways.
Most people TRULY committed to learning, evolve over time...
and what KEEPS us from evolving faster is how DEEPLY we hold onto our TRUTHS... our DEFINITION of what is RIGHT... or the VISION we want and thus "FIX" for ourselves.
The FASTER, the more FLUIDLY we can come off of our definitions of RIGHT... the faster we evolve.
I liken it to that corn-starch experiment my boys did in junior high on NON-NEWTONIAN fluids.
You mix corn starch and a few other things and then you hold it. When you put your finger in it - when you apply a FORCE to it, it turns into a solid.
When you take your finger, or the force off of it, it becomes fluid again.
THAT'S EXACTLY IT!
We LAND in moments...
from the fluidity of LIFE and LEARNING...
and we need to LAND in the moment so that we may be able to propel ourselves in a DELIBERATE DIRECTION.
And, thus to "PUSH OF" with certainty from the moment, we must choose a momentary definition of RIGHT and TRUE...
And, we must be humble enough to let go of that definition almost immediately as we depart from the moment and prepare to land again in the new moment.
IMAGINE a world, where we were all willing to be wrong... or better yet, imagine a world, where we were all TRULY willing to reconsider what we define to be RIGHT and TRUE in every moment.
How different would it be?
How different would you FEEL?
How differently would you treat people around you? And, would you be treated?
We can't get the world there...
but, you can get YOU there...!
I see value in Donald Trump.
I didn't vote for him.
I want him out of the Presidency.
And, I see the good that can come from him.
I didn't like many of President Obama's policies and overall economic direction.
But, I saw such beautiful decency and humanity in him, as a human being, and as a leader.
Think about what you have DEFINED as TRUE & RIGHT in your mind...
at work, about people at work, at home, about our children, about behavior, about what is "good" for people, about what is right and good for ourselves... about alcohol, about sex, about faith, about the NFL, about cars... about furniture...
In every ASPECT of our LIVES, in our MINDS we have DEFINED things... so that we could "move forward"...
The "IS" in our moments are complicated scenarios... The "IS" attempts to define all aspects of our lives... and ABSOLUTE DEFINITIONS make us feel better (often subconsciously) because we don't have to revisit that issue... we can relax with that definition of RIGHT embedded in our minds...
If everything stays fluid, the more we live, the more we think, the more overwhelming life and undertanding it becomes...
But, what if there was an aspect of it that you didn't realize, that you didn't consider, that you didn't KNOW... that you couldn't SEE... in the previous moment...
It has happened to me throughout my life... my views on SO many important, and unimportant things has changed, has grown, has evolved... and I am SO MUCH better because of it...
EVOLUTION REQUIRES A CONSTANT ABILITY TO CREATE AN ITERATED VERSION OF YOURSELF.
The "IS" of the moment has so many dimensions, possibilities, angles, levels...
I think we desperately WANT certainty... Most of us are not like Isabel. We can't stand floating through thought without something to hold onto, something to PUSH off from....
REALIZE THAT... We desperately WANT CERTAINTY...
And, we can only see 0.0035% of the electromagnetic spectrum...
So both for a life of joy and harmony...
for an evolutionary mind...
and for a civilized world...
We must LEARN TO EMBRACE MOMENTARY CERTAINTY...
We must be vulnerable & willing to consider a TRUTH, a RIGHT, an IS completely new with every moment that passes...
That is the ultimate tolerance... the ultimate for of LOVE... the ultimate for of HUMILITY....
To live constantly with the possibility NOT necessarily of being WRONG... because that unsettles us...
but to live constantly with the possibility of SEEING MORE... LEARNING a better definition for RIGHT, for TRUE...
It is our ability to frame up a new vision, redefine our own expectations, accept new things that allows us to get up when we are knocked down...
It is the ability to see quickly, in every new moment, a new possibility of harmony... that keeps us fluid in the right way... pushing off from the vision, the certainty we had...
just a moment ago...
I hope you followed me through this conversation, because it is so unbelievably powerful and potentially life altering...
The possibility of MOMENTARY CERTAINTY...
The REALITY of MOMENTARY CERTAINTY...
Make your mind from corn starch ;-)
Be certain in the moment...
Find the TRUTH in the moment that you can PUSH OFF from...
And, then be humble enough, fluid enough,
to potentially learn a whole new truth in the next...
ALLOW for the possibility of seeing the world in a WHOLE new light...
in a new certainty,
in harmony,
Nestor