This is an honest blog entry, hence it is filled with ham.
For reasons a little beyond me, I have always felt, as far as I
can recall, like an newcomer. This is not a boast nor a plea for sympathy, it
is an honest recollection – the effect of which leaves me with the sensation
that I am of the same calibre as everyone else but not actually one of them. A
visitor, if you will. The chief factor to this illusion is that since childhood
I’ve felt as though I was one class behind everyone else. I often wondered how my
peers were able to be so sure about their outlook on life. And by ‘outlook’, I
don’t mean philosophy or belief, just perspective. I didn’t understand or I
failed to see the sense in what many others seemed to not only be able to
comprehend straightforwardly, but be utterly convinced by. I often found myself
having to accept things at face value for many years – ‘That’s the way it is
because that’s the way it is, I guess! Hope it’ll all add up at some point … ’
I haven’t lived in complete confusion and bewilderment, just an
on-going trickle of perplexity that I mostly go along with. Let me swiftly
address that, no, I do not feign ignorance to hide from any demons or absolve myself
of responsibility. I do strive to understand, if not concretely. The benefit of
my prolific puzzlement has been that it has always encouraged me to analyse and
try to make sense of things for myself rather than rely on the testimonies of others.
In a way, it always intrigued me how people were able to find conviction and contentment
with what information they had. How were they able to build such confidence
around their raison d'être? What enabled them to think they knew what was what?
I have found that the more I learn, the less I know ... so education
was a great success for me. I mean that the more aware I become and the more
horizon my mind gains, the more I realise just how much is out there, how much
of it is chaos, and how much of it is down to perspective. And by ‘out there’,
I don’t mean outer space, I mean out there, down here, round the corner and
under the fridge, inside ourselves, beyond our reach, and right under our very
nose hairs – ALL the things in ALL the places doing ALL the stuff. As a result,
I feel that I know nothing. Or maybe that I don’t want to
know anything because I
want to be able to keep an open mind. It’s as though all my knowledge is wet
cement and I’m doing all I can to stop it from setting. I would like to stay
fluid. I fear becoming so sure about something that I become stubborn and
resilient to consider any alternative. Socrates said, ‘The only true wisdom is
in knowing you know nothing’. I imagine this is because, in the same way that
one has to admit to having a problem before being able to solve it, one must
admit to not know before being able to learn.
Thomas Edison once said, ‘We don’t know a millionth of one per
cent about anything’. To me, that says that regardless of how sure we are of
anything, there’s still so much that is still unanswered. And therefore so much
more is yet to come. How will I be able to deal with the new if I’m ‘set’ in
the old?
With the vast eternity of potentiality, popular opinion, fact,
theory, belief, and random thought, it can be so mind-boggling to figure out what is really what, that I think Douglas
Adams’s Slartibartfast said it best: ‘Perhaps I'm old and tired, but I always
think the chances of finding out what really is going on are so absurdly remote
that the only thing to do is to say “Hang the sense of it” and just keep
yourself occupied.’
Hang the sense of it. Is
there any sense to be had in the first place? Or do we determine the sense of it all? I shrug
my shoulders and smile, but confess to leaning towards the latter. For does
Sense exist in and of itself, or does it require a sentient being to
acknowledge it?
In knowing nothing, I realise I declare myself a fool. A jester in
a court full of noble peers. A harlequin among equal lords. Or maybe I am but a
simple pretentious arse with a fondness for dark clothing and a fascination
with other dark materials and a chin in need of a pointy beard. I cannot
determine that for you. Regardless of my attempts. But that is my prologue. And
it kept me occupied.
