Thursday April 11, 2013 – Deep In the Heart of Texas

I am where I am supposed to be. I think, I believe … uh … maybe, I know … whatever.


There is a lot of philosophic and religious argument concerning “believing” as opposed to “knowing”. It appears as two camps each contending for its own concept of what constitutes thought forms which lead to understanding and experiencing the depths of reality. “Reality” being another issue of contention. What is it? And even “Is it?” How do we know or do we simply “believe”? Is all a matter of our existential experience or is a metaphysical explanation called for to fill in the gaps where our experience, and the experience of many others, simply is unable to fathom, let alone touch, feel, taste hear see and even intuit? So many questions and so relatively few answers, or at least, answers that can hold their own contending for the prize and acknowledgement of being “absolute”.

So here I am in Texas … Austin… the states capital city. A thoroughly modern (or postmodern, I’m not sure what the difference is), high tech, Yuppy infested haven for business and conservative values. So much that seems antithetical to the traditional “John Wayne” image portrayed in cinema, except for possibly a “redneck” attitude and a gamblers gun shooters spirit that won’t hesitate to call a bluff or step up too or even start a fight.

And I “believe” this is where “I” am supposed to be? That was stated more than just a little sarcastically (Notice the question mark). Yes … I “believe so”.

Some would argue that belief or believing in something is basically worthless. The only thing that can be relied on is actual experience, from which knowledge and eventually with enough experience, understanding is realized and from these a world view is established. There is some truth to this. This can establish an understanding upon which mental categories are erected and a conception, built on perceptions, of reality is constructed. Personal experience and ultimately “my” personal experience becomes the foundation for “all”, everything … Yours is fine for you, but I have my own and for me to consider yours as valid (if it does not jive with mine) would take me into the realm of “belief”, and that leaves room for doubt, because your experience is subjective to you and not an objective experience of my own. And my objective experiences, too me at least, can be relied upon … or can they?

Leading psychological research has proved beyond any reasonable doubt that our perceptions of reality, through our sense, cannot be totally relied upon. The fact is there is a lot more there than we as human beings can realize. It is obvious in the fact that other creatures we are all well accustomed to can perceive things well out of range of human ability. Dogs for example have the ability to detect odors about 600 times better than humans. Bees have the ability to recognize colors far beyond the spectrum men can see. Whales and dolphins communicate over vast distances under water through their own innate sonar. Peering deeper and farther into the universe through the use of advanced and ever more powerful telescopes, we see the universe expanding and greater wonders becoming a part of our once closed reality. All these becoming a part of our collective consciousness, and all a matter of “knowledgeable” fact. These things we “know”.

But wait a minute. All this “knowledge”, all that we can now claim to “know”, first, in the mind of someone, or maybe, a few or many someone’s, was conceived as a possibility. First was “believed”, and then set forth as a postulate, and then experimented with. And in some cases re-evaluated and retried until eventually proven or disproven. But knowledge itself seldom “just happened”. I’m not contending that it can’t, I know for a fact that sometimes … it does. But that is not the norm. I have learned that I can trust what others might consider intuitive perceptions. But they don’t always “just happen”. They are not anything that actively works against my ability to reason. And I become increasingly convinced these actually correspond with and supplement conscious reasoning. But they are not to be neglected, neither are they allowed unbridled reign, to have their own way, but are considered, and then with reasonable consideration and apprehension, experimented with, and let the results prove themselves. But this is belief first, leading to the acquisition and experience of some certain knowledge, and this “knowledge” something hither too incomprehensible. A gift from the universe as I allow myself the liberty to believe something is possible. Not conceived of from books or other sources, but intelligence transcendent, yet innate to me as I am a human being.

So … I believe this is where I ought to be. Doing what I ought to be doing. And as I live and experience life, in me, all this is confirmed. Yes … it is my subjective reality that I objectively live. I do not recommend it for everyone, except to open yourselves to the possibility of experiencing more of reality than it may be thought conventionally acceptable.