Be Different!

Do you ever get tired?  Tired of not thinking like the pack?  Tired of not following the path that everyone else seems to be following?  I know some people that constantly get criticized for not following the norm, for not buying into the status-quo and following the story that big business or big government is telling.   When I see these modern day rebels I am in awe.  Awe of their ability to stand for something when the rest of the world calls them crazy.

I am a silent rebel, which in reality means that I am not a rebel at all.  I mean I make my comments here and there, but in general I just “like” something when I agree with it rather than being the one that starts the conversation.  I even secretly want to be that person.  In fact a few people that know me would say that I am, but they know that I am not about to step into the fray.  It almost seems that conflict and controversy are a necessity in social media.  There is no idea that your opinions will be widely accepted, in fact you will likely be chastised by large groups of people with blinders on.  –You know who you are.

The idea that someone doesn’t believe in vaccines, or God, or YOUR God, or past lives, or life on other planets, or eats meat, or doesn’t eat meat, or has gluten allergies, or whatever the controversy or conspiracy of the day is…is just sad.

It goes back to my post on belief versus truth.  We are not truly free to believe what we want as long as someone else has a belief that they hold as truth even in the light that there is no real evidence to support it.

If we never think or do things outside the box we will never grow.  Individually or as a whole.  If every out of the box thinker said ‘screw it!’ then we would likely still be sitting in a cave somewhere.

Stay true to yourself.  Follow your own heart where it leads you and always be open to ideas that are strange to you.  One day…one of those strange ideas may turn out to be TRUTH, and it’s always cool to be able to say that you knew all along!

To Tell the Truth...

What is truth?  Can it be defined as your belief?  If it is supposed to be a known fact about a subject or concept, then how can belief be truth?  How can faith in something be attributed as a truth?  Faith is still the belief that something is truth.  Hope, as is faith, is a desire for something you believe to be truth.

There is no absolute truth in religion.  If there were then that would mean that one of them is right and the rest of them are totally and completely wrong.  And for all of you “Analyticals” out there, science is in the same boat.  Since you can only prove what you can prove, there is no absolute until you can prove what you currently cannot prove.  And since you do not know what that is…oh well.

I find myself constantly at odds with what I know and what I believe.  I even have to keep reminding myself that just because I do not necessarily believe something does not mean that it is not true.  It is only not true for me.  And that being only for the moment that I do not believe it. 

Think about it.  No matter how much knowledge and information we have at this very moment, it is infinitely less than what we will have in ten years, or even, in some cases, ten minutes.  And while it is accepted that truth and knowledge build upon that which we already know…imagine the possibility that at some point in the future, in order to move forward, you have to throw it all away and bow to a greater, and extremely different, perception of truth.

You believe what you believe, as we all do, but how much of it is truth and how much of it is Faith?  And is faith the same for someone who has knowledge beyond your own?  A teacher has knowledge of a subject and the student has only faith…until the knowledge is imparted and then the student becomes the teacher.  But the TEACHER must always be the STUDENT.  Because Truth changes with Understanding and Understanding changes with Knowledge.

It is good to believe in something, because a belief can determine how you live and what you can achieve in this life.  And Truth?  It should always be pursued though it is perpetually elusive.  The hard part is to go past your learning and establish new behaviors to complement the truths.

She's Sly...She's wiley.

In the Spirit of continuation, I was getting ready to take a bike ride into town yesterday and I was looking for roads less traveled on google maps.  The path that google recommended would take me on the main road into Lake Oswego…and I just did not want to go that way.  So I magnified the computer screen and found a direct route that actually took me down a side road when I saw a business locator pin on the road that I had chosen.  It read: New Thought Center for Spiritual Living.  Curious I had to click on it and see what it was.  It instantly loaded a web page that had a video with some rockin’ music on it and it grabbed me.

This is cool, I thought and began reading some of the text on the page.  The more I read the more I knew that I did not just find this page, but I was directed to it.  And I had to attend their service that evening.

Luckily I have a spouse that is similarly enthused by ventures of this nature and she said she would love to attend as well. 

I have been getting up early every morning this week to go to work, so I took a little down time and napped for a couple hours and when I awoke my first thought was to get ready to go.  Now this is significant because my general nature is to get excited about something and then when it is time to do it…the desire was gone.  But there were far greater forces than I at work.  I still had my joy associated with the task…so we went.

It was supposed to be.  I had a bounce to my step afterward that was heretofore missing.  I don’t know if it was the space or the people or the message, but it all fit together.  Even my wife was moved by the experience.

But I caught it…out of the corner of my eye…my wife?  She was smiling.  And at that moment…I knew she was behind all of this.  She had summoned all of her angels to get behind me and push me out the door.

Hey…whatever works…right?