“I know I'm intelligent because I know that I know nothing.”-Socrates
However, we do treat some "in-between" ideas like truths for good reason. We have to latch on to some ideas, but we benefit the most when we do so in a very pluralistic way. We have to latch on, but not so tight that we can't let go as we learn more. Many facts of the past ended up as incorrect theories of the ignorant (the world is flat). Some ideas (group 1) like gravity or the Easter bunny, are difficult and maybe impossible to observe as "possibly incorrect" or "possibly correct," although with some "in-between" ideas(group 2), we have the ability to consciously place them into "folders" labeled; "I've Found This To Be True" or "I've Found This To Be False." In other words, we have the ability to form "relative-truths" about certain ideas based on research and experience. However, there are other ideas(group 3) that frighten, confuse, and separate us because we don't have enough knowledge to draw real or worthwhile conclusions about them. We don't like that. In fact, it makes us so uncomfortable that we often act like these ideas are more rational than gravity or the absence of the Easter bunny. This is a destructive and all to common problem. Think of these three groups. 1) No research necessary. IE. gravity, life needs( food, shelter, water, and ideas that we use several times a day and learned with minimal experience and research 2) Ideas that require several years of research and experience to draw conclusions. IE. how to be happy, how to make friends, how to find love, how to influence 3) Ideas that infinite research and experience could leave you without a conclusion. So, lets focus on what most of us know and agree on and what brings us together.
In my "I've Found This To Be True" folder (group 2) I've placed this quote, "When you are healthy enough to do so, go find, participate in, lead, and follow within a group that helps people, because it will make you happy, and happiness like positivity, is exponentially infectious." This quote encompasses three important ideas my life has taught me; A.) groups make you happy B.) helping people makes you happy C.) being rationally positive makes other people happier. (all group 2) I equate them to happiness/fulfillment because most healthy people want more of it.
People come together to help the earth,themselves, and humanity for infinite reasons, and do so in varying amounts, but the numbers of many groups diminish along side their helping potential because of disagreements about qualifiers like; who should be helped, why should they be helped, and under what conditions should they be helped (group 3 ideas).
Many help qualifiers are romanticized like poverty, poor health, and lacking education,but these qualifiers have never been rationalized, and even if they could be rationalized, it would take an amount of time that wouldn't merit whats actually been accomplished by rationalizing them in the first place. Like; Maybe some rich people could use more help, maybe some poor people abuse help. maybe humanity thrives when certain people are sick, who gets to decide? why do they get to decide?(all group 3 ideas) and the important question; Why does our focus end up here?(group 1... maybe 2) When it comes to helping, it doesn't make sense to focus on ideas that have been disagreed on since recorded history. No one would have ever been helped. We deprive and provide health,money, and education to those who we find deserving. Welcome to the abyss of subjective territory that no one really understands, but many of us have formed strong opinions about.(group 3) Humanity and the earth would have been much better off if certain people had less help,money,education,health and influence. So these qualifiers aren't universally worthwhile. It's our fear of helping the "wrong people" that sometimes leaves us living static, unhelpful, self-centered lives. The turning point is when we realize that our help, though on the surface appears to be for others, is actually for ourselves with the added bonus of occasionally helping others too. We just need to pick or create a group that helps without causing other problems in the process.(group 2 idea)
In short, we need to choose our groups more wisely. Many groups help some qualifying people under certain conditions while alienating others in need of help, as well as other groups of helping people. We need to find and create groups that help humanity while keeping group 3 "talk" to a minimum, especially when that talk puts one human or group above another. That talk will lead to inevitable separation and other problems that negate the initial cause. The unknown makes us uncomfortable. We try to talk our way out of it and we fail, because we don't have enough facts to really have a valid opinion. We just have a hunch that our peers have helped us romanticize. When people try to communicate about ideas that they don't understand themselves,they inevitably fail at communicating them to others. Its impossible to communicate those group 3 ideas to someone else. It becomes high volume, continuous streams of meaningless, bumper-sticker, emotionally charged, platitudes that separate people, waste time, and exhaust us. It's group 3 knowledge. It functions as a tab that separates people and deprives them of their helping potential.
Find and create groups that don't waste time placing themselves above others or attaching themselves to philosophies that do the same. Why give and take away when you can just give?
We all agree on enough to take action and impact humanity and our own lives in ways that we haven't seen. We all agree that actions get much more accomplished than words, so lets focus on the few things we kind of Know and agree on like; our (group 1 and group 2) knowledge. " When you are healthy enough to do so, go find, participate in, lead, and follow within a group that helps people, because it will make you happy, and happiness like positivity, is exponentially infectious." The more conditions and qualifiers that we package with our help, and the more time we focus on our group 3 ideas, the less everyone takes away from the situation. However, when we decide to research, lets try to prove our own ideas wrong not right. Knowledge happens when someone with an idea constantly tries to prove it wrong with no success. Trying to prove something right shows your bias, and therefore doesn't produce useful information, while failing to prove something wrong excludes your bias, and yields very useful knowledge.
By Blake Aaron Russell
