belief: differentiator or downfall?
taking no further questions, hope heads off to dinner
Our capacity for belief is innate. We believe in something we can’t see, or dream up a construct. The way I see it, convincing someone to believe in something is the only efficient or effective way to get anyone to do anything. Belief is the bedrock of conviction and absolutism. We rest our heads at night on the chest of an unflinching narrative while it strokes our hair and repeats the story of itself to us as we drift off to sleep.
When I think of society today, I think of fractured. I think of an old tube tv with the glass screen smashed in. I think of a crape myrtle tree with its thin, every limb for itself branches and no unifying truth, I mean universal trunk.
“The Internet” has made us so alone, they say and it’s true and maybe one day we’ll think things through, but it is hard to conjure all possible futures. The most evil individuals in the world were once sweet little babies with unblemished cheeks or consciouses, and at some point they started to believe in something. Probably we’ll never stop creating things, rules, ways that cause harm. Probably we’ll never stop believing in people who destroy us.
So it is, today, that often the only people in the world we can find who believe what we believe are very far away, in a very different place and instantly, with a connection made, we are more alone because they are not here, and we are not there. But we believe more fervently because now we know there is someone else out there who sees things the way that we do.
In the end, does it seem that perhaps a shared perception is even more vital than a shared experience? A shared belief in the way things have gone, and the way they might, or ought to go. Thus, hope is born.
Brilliant post- love the analogy of the cracked tv and the accompanying artwork.
As a child my head was filled with nonsense, cross-dressing rabbits, talking animals, teenage detectives, a time-traveling McFly, and spaceships. I worry less about strange ideas taking hold of minds and more that if we don't allow minds space to explore Ideas that we won't see consequences of beliefs.