Seeing What’s Hidden
A cloud shrouded sultry August morning…
Another day begins. I realized that I inadvertently missed an appointment yesterday. No matter the note written in my day-timer, my memory is no longer as reliable as in my youth. I imagined the appointment for today’s afternoon. Therefore an apology is called for. I will apologize and made amends. Also I’ll need another appointment. To be human is to be mistaken.
I read somewhere about fallabilism. (from Medieval Latin: fallibilis, “liable to error”) It is always possible to be wrong. Nothing can be proven with complete certainty. If meaning is derived from context, when a context changes even a bit, the meaning shifts as well. What I thought true, no longer ought to be relied upon… Food for thought.
It is very difficult hold my expectations for life loosely, to no longer insist upon being certain. Even when I know such openness is a key to sanity, to a life-well-lived, I continue to crave the security of being right all of the time. What do I want? What extreme measures am I willing to take, or allow others to take in my name, to have what I want? Is “having” feasible, reasonable, or could/would that be monstrous?
Such ruminations are relevant to these times, here and now in America.
The first verse of the 81 verse of the Tao Te Ching seems unusually comforting today.
Vs. 1
The way you can go
isn’t the real way.
The name you can say
isn’t the real name.
Heaven and earth
begin in the unnamed:
name’s the mother
of ten thousand things.
So the unwanting soul
sees what’s hidden,
and the ever-wanting soul
sees only what it wants.
Two things, one origin,
but different in name,
whose identity is mystery.
Mystery of all mysteries!
The door to the hidden.
Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu, trans. Ursula K. Le Guin
Notwithstanding naming and language is a bid to control circumstances – I can do no more than affirm, than confess – always, yes always I am partially wrong.
*header image of Buddhism Hungry Ghosts
2 thoughts on “Seeing What’s Hidden”
Many years ago during an anthropology class in junior college, the teacher asked the class to define the term “Green.” What color is green?
“Well,” said most of the class, ” green is the color of a leaf.” And so the teacher placed two leaves side by side. Each was a different shade of what we call green.
Our teacher then asked, “So which one is green?” Clearly they were different colors and yet we only had one basic word to describe the leaves. Of course there are other variations on the terminology but there is an infinite number of colors and hues, so our ability to describe any particular object is limited by our language. That was my first glimpse into the difficulties we face when attempting to communicate with any kind of precision.
This limitation in linguistic ability is necessary for us to be able to communicate with each other since we do not have access to an infinite number of words. But the fallibility that is built into any form of communication invariably leads to confusion and disagreement. Especially when we add into the mix our individual and subjective interpretation of language.
So we are indeed never correct and yet we are always correct, depending on perspective. Curiosity and a capacity to admit error are the keys to evolutionary progress in our species, yet those traits are a rarity in humans. So what’s next?
Indeed that is the looming question: So what’s next?