Volatile Avidity

Some believe consciousness is an illusion. Others believe reality is the illusion. And some see both as they are.

We think emotional pain comes from the outside and hurts us inside. We feel affected by the happening, like victims of circumstance. But emotions are the means by which our bodies feel our thoughts. And our thoughts are how our minds explain what we perceive. What we perceive is the result of what we let our attention explore. Our attention is like our breathing: automatic until intentional. If we attend to that which wants to explore the painful experience, we discover the imposter in us who feeds on chaos and despair. If we then attend to that which exposes the imposter for what it is, we discover our true self who knows the deep secret of our pain.

"Mono" means one, alone, single. "Stereo" means solid, three-dimensional. One gives rise to two. Two gives rise to three. To truly experience depth, we require at least two perspectives. The conflict between the left and right eyes and ears creates the experience of perceiving three dimensions. "Type" means "a category of people having common characteristics." "Characteristic" means "a feature or quality belonging typically to a person, place, or thing and serving to identify it." These are mutually defining words; each gives rise to the other. What exactly is a "stereotype"? "A widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing." Notice "image" and "idea." Notice the word "oversimplified." Notice the word "fixed," as in "solid." "Solid" as in "unchanging," which people ...

If you find you don't agree with a single word from someone's mouth, you haven't yet begun to see from that person's perspective. If you find you agree with every single word from someone's mouth, you haven't yet found the edges of that person's perspective. Knowing one truth does not make another untrue, since all truths are actually features or silhouettes of truth.

Every perspective is true, if you know what you're looking at. Every word makes sense, if you know what is meant. You can find y, if you know x. If you know the equation. If you know y, you can find x. If you know the words, you can make sense of the meaning. If you know truth from every perspective, you can find it in everything.

Truth is limitless, but language has limitations. In truthful language, we are as precise as we are able without conveying more detail than we know. Therefore, the amount of detail that can be knowingly conveyed is limited by the speaker's knowledge. However, details from other perspectives merge to redress the limitations. They correct each other, revealing the balance that reveals the truth. If we already have the detail, we don't notice the gaps. We are not led astray by ambiguity. But we are inclined to become oblivious to the many forks and pitfalls in the roads we choose to travel on the way of truth.

The seed begets the tree which yields fruit. The truth begets understanding which yields perspective. Is there more than one truth then? Must we worry about which seed we plant? If the seed is indeed truth, then there is only one seed. The seed leads to fruit, but we must eat the fruit to find the seed within. Fruit does not last long. It is best consumed between ripeness and freshness. A fruit that goes uneaten spoils. Perspectives are temporal. They are best used between comprehension and novelty. A perspective that goes unused invites corruption. The only decision to make is which fruits to eat. Don't eat rotten fruit.

As we accumulate and assimilate more and more perspectives, we tend to let go of and forget less useful, more distorted perspectives. Empathy is the ability to identify and make use of others' perspectives. To practice empathy, practice looking at things from diverse perspectives at once. Don't look at the perspective, because then you will be inclined to judge it. Use the perspective to interpret, then translate the interpretation.

Knowing is the result of experiencing truth directly. The result of deciding against denial. The only acceptable reproduction of truth. Truth that claims to be truth is not truth, but merely a perspective of truth. Truth must be experienced directly. Believing is an act of will, an agreement in the soul. An acceptance of a reproduction of a reproduction of truth. A stepping stone temporarily serving as knowledge. Non-truth that claims to be non-truth is aligned with truth. But non-truth that hides between expressions of truth is the corruption that grows beside truth as a strangling vine. Spirit recognizes truth as one remembers a forgotten fact. It cannot be persuaded against truth as the soul can. Instead, it yearns to free truth from all confusion and deception.

Everything is true from a perspective. Some perspectives are more accurate than others. But perspectives are not truth, and truth is not perspective. Truth is singular. It appears as many truths, which manifest as everything, from matter to love. Its many appearances are received and understood by means of perspective. No perspective is truth. Perspective is like a single ray of light reflecting truth. We may learn more and more of truth by exploring many perspectives, while evaluating their accuracy according to the heart, and holding that no perspective is a perfect image of truth, yet rejecting no perspective entirely, since even the most distorted ray of light is a signal by which to gain information and then understanding. We develop our understanding of truth by painting a picture of truth from the many perspectives we encounter throughout our lives. These images are imperfect and incomplete, but while our eyes are open, we improve them as long as we curate them with care...

The way our brains work is vastly different from the way our minds work. Different in the same way that physics differs from philosophy. Different like mainstream science differs from religion. Different, just as language differs from art. Both are perspectives of reality, frameworks of comprehension, perceptions of truth, frames of reference, vocabularies, doctrines, beliefs, ideas.

What exactly does it mean to “make sense of” something? To understand it? My intuition (what is that, anyway?) offers this definition: To snugly integrate a new concept into what you already know. The more connections between the new concept and the existing concepts, the deeper the understanding will be. “Pondering” any concept, old or new, can deepen your understanding. Having a diverse set of frames of reference helps build an accommodating infrastructure for new concepts. But what is “knowing”? The result of recognizing truth.  To accept as indisputable, potentially foundational, or even fundamental, fact. What about “knowing about”? To have an existing mental representation of the object. What’s the difference between knowing and understanding? The same as the difference between looking and seeing, listening and hearing.