A New Moon Shot, An Old Blind Spot
Would you rather be loved if that love were a lie; Or be certain of truth, but alone when you die? Would you rather give succor by fighting the tide;
Or insist on compliance, putting feeling aside?
Of course, choices in life are rarely so binary. One is not held to a singular choice of love versus truth, or empathy versus rules for the entirety of life. Even perception itself is a relative scale of shades of grey between black and white, though it’s clear that we humans tend to have our own preferences.
Some prefer to think of each decision as a discrete situation, an equation computed each time from scratch by our own decisions; Some see life governed completely by forces outside ourselves. None of these philosophical questions, nor the consideration of their consequences are remotely new here. The discussion of fate versus free will must predate written history, and considering this dichotomy presents not just the binary option of either fate or free will, but possibly a combination of both.
When humans ponder the nature of our varied experiences of reality, we will never be able to answer the question “what lies outside of that?” If there is a self aware God controlling our cosmos, even He, She, or It wouldn’t know if something existed outside of Her, His, or It’s own awareness.
In short, there can be no known absolute truth; There can only be a belief in absolute truth, comfort enough for some. I have written about these ideas ad nauseam — to many of my friends, family, and former lovers, ad nauseous.
Lest I overwhelm, I’d ask new readers to consider this latest series alone before digging through my journey of searching and rambling; There is much redundant, evolving material, and I believe this series will present a more complete picture. I believe I’ve reached a personal transition, even as my country prepares for one of the most dramatic and precarious turning points in history. I’m moving past my unfocused and often overwrought desperation, my shouting into the wind, my desperately trying to prevent a coming storm which has now arrived, a perfect storm of fear and animosity.
I will plant my own imperfect stick of truth, attempting to part the potentially looming tumultuous red sea of bloodshed, to escape those who segregate us in outdated divisions of civilization. Our pursuers are our histories and ourselves. On the other side of these divisions lies a promised land of new understanding and hope, a substantive vision that trumps the shortsighted skirmishes which set us against each other and blind us.
Building a permanent utopia for all is impossible — life is ever changing — but that shouldn’t stop us from the continuing quest for a more perfect union. And so, I offer my written contribution.
The three main segments on this road mirror the phases of Dickens’ Christmas Carol or Capra’s Wonderful Life — We traverse a trial of youth, explore a composite model of today’s reality, and envision our possible futures. Through the tragedy, complexity, and fear, the final summation is hopeful and optimistic, the sketch of a vision of a path forward, intended as an outline of a framework, not a complete blueprint. It is not mine to dictate, I hope simply to pass my ideas forward.
Now is the moment of the visit of Marley’s ghost, of this flawed author’s quest to earn his wings, by way of a journey through past, present, and future. (I will update the following with links to the other parts as they are completed.)
Part one, Questions for Nicholas, narrates perhaps the most influential part of my own origin story, a traumatic incident revisited not only in my own memory, but through my visit inside a Level 3 prison in rural Virginia to visit the murderer who would reshape my entire context of that event and its fallout. I hope it’s the last time I write about this.
Part two, The Shape of Everything (working title), is a thought experiment, a sketch of an admittedly grandiose ‘Theory of Everything’ which outlines a unified multidisciplinary worldview from religion to science to psychology and beyond. It offers a paradigm shift without requiring abandonment of all beliefs, while increasing understanding, respect, harmony and prosperity. No big deal.
Part two is not a complete recipe or a proof — it’s a concept asking the reader to consider if their own ideas might fit The Shape, and if they might be able to expand upon it.
Part three, Where Do We Go From Here? (working title), starts from the present moving forward, examining near and far reaching outcomes, ideologically, geopolitically, and economically, building on the composite lens of parts one and two. Finally, it presents a real-world series of hidden compromises illustrating an optimistic way forward.
As impossible and disparate as much of this sounds, these stories connect through our blind spots. They are, by their very nature, hidden from view, and they are growing. These are not personal failings, they are a result of our very makeup and sometimes actually beneficial.
However, a lack of understanding of their nature has created an inadvertent conspiracy of opposing ideologies. I believe our human collective has lost the ability to see the forest for the trees. Thanks to modern trends, most of us are deeper in the woods than we realize.
There are only two requirements to make this journey, and they’re not insignificant. First, readers must be willing to genuinely consider the possibility that any single one of their most deeply held beliefs may be flawed or wrong. Second, readers must be able to push past ideas they believe to be offensive.
True compromise and mutual understanding are trapped in a blindspot between fundamentalism and political correctness; The first being inflexible doctrine and rules one must believe and obey. The second prevents discussion of uncomfortable ideas, hiding understanding behind a fear of offense. These are the mirrored concepts of intellectual blindness, and both are well intentioned.
There is no hope for us if any one group thinks theirs is always right, and “the other” always wrong. Some sacred cows on all sides must be slaughtered, including my own.
This is not to say one side of a disagreement cannot be relatively “more right” than the other, but I’ll propose that for every disagreement, each side sees or understands something the other does not, even if it simply a mutual inability to communicate or relate.
Not only is no one always right, it is possible to be both right and wrong at the same time, and pushing through this apparent cognitive dissonance is a major gateway to understanding.
My efforts are nothing short of a philosophical Moon Shot, a gargantuan task meant to unite us in a shared vision of the future. I myself am attempting to metaphorically shoot the moon, the risky strategy of collecting all of the penalty cards of the most romantic of the four suits in the game of Hearts. I have chosen to play this game at high personal stakes. I risk digging myself an even deeper hole to help launch my country, my species, and admittedly myself out of the pit we are in.
If one is successful in ‘shooting the moon,’ they may choose to penalize the other players — the ‘Old Moon’ rules. Alternatively, one may choose to reduce their own deficit instead, the ‘New Moon’ rules. Both have the same net effect, but the punitive choice likely inspires more psychological animosity with most players.
In lunar terms, a ‘New Moon’ is the phase in which earth’s satellite hides from our sun in the shadow of the earth, its own blindspot, near invisible to most, unless one is looking for the darkened disc in the sky. A New Moon symbolizes rebirth, new beginnings, a time to renew our dreams and find hope again.
As the Supermoon of November 2016 rises tonight as I write this, as it reaches peak illumination at its closest distance between us for the next seventeen years, I hope we can all break through humanity’s highest glass ceiling — the blindspot of our disconnect and division, such that we’ll see each other illuminated as we gaze upwards together in this unprecedented moment to find a new beginning.
