The Silliness of Certainty
Sitting in the classroom, two things became abundantly clear to me: I’m definitely more of a words guy and physical science is harder and more intriguing than I had ever truly considered. When we learned about the visible spectrum of light and how mind blowingly minuscule it was compared to the invisible spectrum, I started to have some real doubts. When that same sentiment was echoed with our hearing, it was fairly obvious to me that there was a massive difference between what I was able to perceive and what is actually happening. With my vast inability to understand a majority of the information all around me how could I ever know anything?
That knowledge paired nicely with my deep dissatisfaction with religion, and led me to being begrudgingly yet inescapably agnostic. To my surprise, the only people that creationists and evolutionists seem to despise more than each other were people who didn’t “pick a side” like me. Over and over again I would hear online and in conversations “That’s not an answer,” and think “How can you be sure?”
Over years of having this same discussion with anyone that I thought I could, another truth began to show itself. There was a direct ratio to how intolerant and dismissive a person was of the opposing view, and how forced and fragile their own appeared. Some people solely prided themselves on pointing out just how pathetically wrong their opponents were more than inspecting and improving or even celebrating their perspective. Like two political parties that need the hate of the other for meaning and relevance. Does it help us to have such volatile and violent views, whether in philosophy, politics, or anything else?
Humans have a distinct need for answers, especially when we are unsure of the questions. What is it to have an answer? What is the difference between knowing and understanding? When we see a star, the process of science helps us know more about it. The colors tell what gas it is made of and how hot it is burning. We can even learn the distance between it and ourselves, but these facts do not give us an understanding of why it is there, or why we are here to see it. Perhaps understanding and knowledge are meant to work together, like science and spirituality, to help us live in wholeness and peace.
It occurred to me that some of the anxiety that I was feeling could be due to me trying to answer knowledge-based questions with understanding-based answers, and vice versa. I can know my name, my loved ones, and my favorite color, but how I feel about myself and my place in this world is an active understanding that I have with the universe that can’t be reduced to quantifiable facts alone. When I looked at the nature of this existence through a knowledge-based lens it left me cold and indifferent to myself and anyone else. The answers it provided only seemed to point to the unbearable fact that I only knew, and could know, so little, and understood even less. My search for provable facts left me with a head full of weights and measures, and an empty heart.
When I finally looked within, and avoided treating my thoughts, emotions or beliefs like fragile facts that need constant defending, I was flooded with peace and understanding. When I opened myself up to the grace and freedom that true Love gives, it was like a hidden world presented itself to me. I was vitally important in my own life again, and knowledge was an asset and not a liability.