Look Into My Eyes

Doubt whom you will, but never doubt yourself.

Christian Bovee
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Hello Sue
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There is no such thing as an absolute sceptic, or so I am told by first year philosophy students. They have sure arguments all lined up to prove it. I believe them. But I also think it is probably a sensible thing to be a sceptic in moderation. After all one doesn't want to believe everything one reads and hears. It goes beyond just determining if a thing is right or wrong. One should also determine the relative value of something, relative to its usefulness in its area of operation and also to its claims to value.

Moderate scepticism is healthy at most times. Mild scepticism may miss important flaws and extreme scepticism may lose sight of values, "throwing out the baby with the bath water" as the saying goes. Nevertheless, all thoughts, ideas, theories, facts, reports, beliefs, opinions and particularly politicians claims all deserve to come under the scrutiny of an honest doubting mind. But there is a place where being skeptical has to stop.

Her name was Lisa. She was 18, a high school senior. I went to her class to talk to the students about theatre and acting in particular. They were a lively and intelligent group. They asked the type of questions that got me thinking about my answers. One girl sitting at the end was full of questions about what it was like to live as an actor. I decided she was probably interested in a show business career and so I asked her that. She said she didn't know but she was thinking about it. Then she said she didn't think she was good enough. I asked her why she thought that and finally got her to say she was very unsure of herself in general.

I picked up my chair and moved over to right in front of her and sat. I took her hands and stared into her eyes. I wanted to look past the pretty girl with the sweet voice. I looked past the meadows and lagoons in her eyes, deep into her being, where I saw the fire of life.

I said very quietly and slowly: never.....doubt.....yourself............promise me.
She answered in a whisper "yes."

I picked up my chair and went back to the rest of the group. I never saw Lisa again. I hope it worked.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
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Weird Ways 3/02/09

One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing.

Morris West
???????????
Here we go.
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One of the strangest places I was ever in was a small city in the Southwest that was built literally in the middle of the desert. There was a road that came into town, but it didn't go through it. I walked to the end of the road and I was on the edge of the city, There was a sidewalk. Houses were built along the side walk. It turned a right angle and there were more houses, with back yards, trees. bushes and children playing in the yards But when you stepped off the sidewalk you stepped immediately into the desert. If you turned your back to the houses all you would see in front of you was desert. I don't remember the name of that city or what state it was in, but I imagine it has expanded out into that desert by now.

I often think of that experience of taking a single step from civilization into wilderness. To me it was the same as taking a step from the safe and known into the dark world of ignorance. Ignorance is not a bad thing. Stupidity is bad, ignorance is not the same thing. When able to admit my ignorance about something, I am poised to step into the wild world of darkness and doubt. If I take that step it could be scary. What some people call foolishness, other people call courage. One has to agree to walk in darkness before one can see the light.

If some did not have the courage to peer into a telescope or a microscope, to crawl around in dark caves or on the ocean floor, or peek into the machinations of the human mind, we wouldn't know anything.

I once visited a Museum of Philosophy. In it there was a computer program that asked me a series of questions about my beliefs and opinions. Then it came up with a list of philosophers whose writings, more or less, conformed to my own philosophy of things. I thought, how nice, I can read the works of great writers who agree with me. I could bask in the easy sunshine of coordinate thinking.

It didn't take but a few days before I became bored with that idea, and went searching out the rare and troublesome works of thinkers who were antagonistic to my easy, sunny, back porch studies and who posed ideas that were difficult to understand and even harder to harmonize with what I thought was true. I began to grapple with new ideas. Some of them were very ancient, but they were new to me. And I found dark and doubtful places in my own thinking that needed to have a microscope trained on them.

Oh, I'm still ignorant. Who isn't? But that part of my vagabond journey has been fascinating, fulfilling and infuriating. And I won't stop until I know something.

DB
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May you hear the silent, distant winds of Spring.