To do or not to do

“That Honey is sweet I refuse to assert; that it appears Sweet I fully grant.” — Pyrrho

Dusk already had approached. Nature was saying “We’re done for the day” in its own style and Ted was observing it fortuitously.

He was intermitted by Tracy’s voice in between, “Teddy, I am famished. Let us go somewhere!”

“Oh is it dear? Let us go the newly opened Restaurant nearby. We haven’t tried that yet.” Ted told Tracy.

“Yea That’s good idea. Let us go there. I would get ready in sometime! ” Tracy replied Ted with zing.

Ted assented. They reached restaurant after sometime.

Ted looked at the Menu Card and went through the different options offered by the restaurant. There were too many options to choose from for Ted. He was skeptical about “too many choices” and was speculating that which choice would give him more delight.

This is something what we could always observe in our behavior. We come across many choices during our life time. Be it to choose to what to eat at a restaurant, or to what to study after finishing high school, where to live, what to follow etc. We are never certain about the results what we are going to encounter after making certain choices. We are always skeptical about the choice and try to speculate how different choices can shape our future. If we are put into a condition where we have experienced something before; then at that particular condition we can take decisions effortlessly and can be pretty sure about what could be the possible result.

This is something what is termed as, “skepticism”. We always raise a “question” at a particular condition and try to give an answer to it based on our beliefs, knowledge or facts observed in past.

Our Beliefs, knowledge or facts we know are based on our senses which consumed it at a particular time frame. And that knowledge/fact/belief can differ time by time! Example as, boot cut jeans were in trend before some years. So we wore them without any hesitation. We never speculated how what people would respond to it, neither we were skeptical about it. But now if you want to wear that particular type, you indeed would be skeptical because of the fact that now it is out of fashion (This is what is high-level picture of what we think). Our senses’ consumed knowledge has been changed according to time frame and so as our skeptical mind has given different speculation regarding that.

Once great Philosopher Pyrrho said that, “since our senses could not be relied on, we could never figure out anything, about anything. Therefore one way of life is good as another.” And also adding fuel to the thought, once Socrates said about skepticism, “I know one thing that I do not know anything.” Though these two Philosophers had said those things in quite a different time frame, but they’re highly relatable. Also, from Pyrrho’s thought, we can follow the Murphy’s law which states that, “Whatever can happen, will happen.” Any path you choose cannot be good/bad. It would just be as is. Your actions would depict whether that path is for you or not.

So we should always try to put our senses in equilibrium while being skeptical about something. We should always try to escape the unnecessary fear and worry which we go through while speculating the result. Because whatever we choose, is going to affect us by one way or other!

“It is the tension between creativity and skepticism that has produced the stunning and unexpected findings of science.”

-Carl Segan