Truth or Rational Fiction?
Some people believe — and this is probably almost everyone in the western world — that through the mind, i.e. the faculty of rational thought, one can understand and make sense of the world. This is the very premise that sits as the basis for science, heck, at the basis of our languages, even. I know this is not the true definition, but what it is in some sense, mind is putting word after word in a linear and intelligible manner. It is a tool, but it is not the worker. It is not a means of salvation, yet we see our thought as equal to truth.
We generally think of ourselves as the one who guides and directs thought, but this ‘I’, who we think we are, is itself thought. If you assume the role of director of your thoughts, then you are bound to think only linearly, in small steps, in small increments. Even more, you yourself are in your thoughts.
What is true and what is just rational fiction?
Through mind, meaning, once extracted, can be expressed verbally. But mind cannot extract true meaning. It can extract meanings, but not the true meaning, or at least, not your true meaning. And you can always feel it when something is not true for you. Whether you want to accept and use this information is up to you.
But true meaning (insight — within sight) is extracted by something other than the mind. It takes you by surprise. It is unexpected and just clicks. It is new and could not have come from the known, yet you intuitively sense its validity.
Rational fiction, usually the result of mind operating with information it has in order to derive meaning from something it does not know. It is not something to loath, despise or think lesser of. It can be a natural human response in the face of unfamiliarity. However, if the said unfamiliarity is totally unfamiliar, known knowledge can help you very little, for it tries to explain the new with the old, to somehow transmute the new into the old, using the old. — I’m hoping to find a metaphor for this, but for now it will have to wait -
Sometimes the new (hidden in the unfamiliar) requires new words, new ways of thinking about and making sense of it. And this cannot come from the old cumbersome and linear train of thought that — in some cases — has been having its clunky engines run by your blind and, sometimes, forced pledge of allegiance to it. In other words, it has too much history, it carries too many conventions and axioms that it cannot integrate the new, as true as it may be. There will be conflict. And then comes the choice: ignore what’s right in front of your face and hold onto what you already know for dear life or, embrace the new and make peace with the past, not imposing that it be valid now, stretching and mutilating it to your own despair and to the horror of others.
Don’t force your mind to give you meaning or interpret things. Mind is an algorithmic machine that can produce numerous valid responses to one problem. Which one do you pick? The options can be equally rational. Which one do you choose? I believe that this is the reason most of the people nowadays suffer from chronic anxiety. We have become an increasingly mental (rationalistic) society and we have lost touch with our capacity to face the new and integrate it. We have become robots that are very good at performing calculations and solving the ‘1+1=?’ problem. Unfortunately, we have not found what equals love, peace, contentment… I’m not sure we could ever do it because, while they are the solution to problems, they are not the result of any equation. So, good luck calculating the equation of peace…
As you might have found out by now, all interpretations comes on top of truth and are relative; that is to say, not ultimately true. I have written quite a bit on this in my previous book “Trust: Life after Enlightenment or, how to live happily in a world without meaning”. Resorting to the mind come up with real, transformative meanings, or expecting it to make sense of the new, is asking it to produce one, or multiple of those questionable, relative and inert meanings. I call them inert because, they don’t have any life and power in them. They can not inspire and get your body moving, they cannot be the fuel for down-to-the-bones and lasting transformation; transformation of thought, of behaviour, of life… It cannot bring transformation that is welcomed, but only that which is imposed.
I ended my last book with the following advice: admit what you know and, likewise, admit what you don’t know. Admit what you know because there may be thoughts that you hold dearly and that your aren’t even aware of, that can stifle and even prevent your understanding of the new. Admit what you don’t know because otherwise you will be ever-forcing the past onto the present and future, being made blind to the new. Doing this you will avoid making yourself insensitive to the truth and ignorant and resistant to your evolving understanding of it.
As I have said previously, mind is important and has its part to play in this process of making sense of things. However, for it to be used at what’s it’s best and to its full potential, it has to be subordinated to something other than yourself — the one that can only direct it linearly; the one that is itself linear and a construct of the past. It has to be subordinated to that which is the known and unknown alike. As much as I would like to avoid sounding annoyingly mystical, sometimes it’s very difficult to express something of this sort without resorting to such wishy washy language and horrifically misused and overused terms such as “God”, or “Spirit”. So, pardon me if you get annoyed or uneasy once in a while, but it’s something that you just have to make due within the attempt to express the inexpressible.
Any voluntary act of trying to understand or make sense of something is done precisely by the mind. It springs from the linear existence of the ego. So, don’t try to do it, don’t try to understand, don’t try to get it. It’s ok that you want to know and crucial that you admit you don’t know. And when you approach life like this, truth will make itself apparent to you and meaning will make itself clear to you.
