Why I am here
I am the father of an amazing 2 year-old daughter. If you've ever been there, then perhaps you understand what this blog is about. The world is a crazy place. It is a fascinating, scary, beautiful, fragile, comforting, dangerous, crazy place. It was simple when I was a child. I got up, went to school, played, and ate. It wasn't really simple, I just wasn't aware of the world as it existed outside the child bubble. Some people had more in their child bubble than I did, more to deal with, more challenges to overcome. I consider myself lucky in that respect. We weren't rich or poor. My parents loved me and treated me like a human being. My life was, and is, good.
But today I view the world through adult eyes. It can be scary when that time comes, when the child bubble bursts and reality comes flooding in on a confused not-quite-adult who, in many cases, just wants the world to retreat and give them room to breathe. I think we all face a choice when that happens. The easiest choice is to find a new, larger bubble with other people that help you cope. This happens to a certain extent even in childhood when you drift towards a group of friends that you share common interests with. But what I am really talking about is far more complicated than that. I am not a neurologist or anything like that, but I do hold a degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology so I have learned about the brain, both during and after college. Our brain acts like a filter. We are flooded with sensory input that has to be prioritized so that we know how to respond to what we see, smell, feel, hear, and taste. But we also do it with ideas. We simplify things so that day to day life is manageable. Can you imagine if you had to constantly choose what to respond to at any given time from all the myriad of sensations hitting you at any given time? You may think that this is what you do, but your brain automatically dismisses most of the things you experience just because they aren't necessary to what you are consciously, or even unconsciously, trying to accomplish. It also forms generalizations so that you can make quicker decisions when it is necessary to react quickly. When you see a body of water, your brain assumes it is just like any other body of water: wet, possibly deep, can cause you to drown, great place to dispose of bodies. Now that was a roundabout, and probably boring, way of getting to this point. Many people do consciously what the brain does unconsciously. They have a belief, for instance a belief in god, and they view their world through the lens of that belief. It helps them understand what they experience. Or maybe people view their world through the lens of their job, like a doctor filtering everything through their medical training. It's not a perfect metaphor, but the idea is that the easy choice is to view the world through some sort of filter, to fall back on your beliefs or your training when the world at large becomes too overwhelming to process everything.
But I think there is a harder choice. Reality doesn't exist in any of those bubbles...it just is. There is, I believe, an ultimate reality. There is a reality that doesn't care who you are or what you know or what you believe. It doesn't care about anything...it just is. For instance, I am looking at a chair. A chair is complicated because it is man-made and we imbue it with a specific purpose. But within that context, the chair exists as a chair. My brain may be damaged and perceive it as a turtle, but it's still a chair. I may belong to a weird cult that chooses to worship the chair as a deity, but it's still a chair. So here is the harder choice. We can choose to face reality. We can choose to not accept at face value what is presented to us. Someone can call something a fact, but that does not make it a fact. If someone says something that is just obviously wrong, you can correct them. People can believe whatever they want in the privacy of their own head, but the instant something untrue and wrong leaves their lips, you can choose to tell them to stop talking and think. If someone dismisses an actual fact by saying, "well that's just your opinion," you can choose to not let the conversation end. That's the harder choice. To not let ignorance and bullheadedness propagate because if reality is dismissed as opinion then we as a species cannot move out of intellectual infancy and become more than we are. That's what this blog is about. I will question my own beliefs and the beliefs of other and strive to know what is actually reality. Be it science, or politics, or religion, or whatever, nothing is free from scrutiny. At times it will be a light-hearted look at pop-culture. At others it will be a ranting, raving bitch-fest at the lies that are told to advance an agenda. I sincerely hope that I learn something I've always "known" is not true. I want to make sure what I know is not just what I believe. I will not teach my daughter a convenient lie because the truth is too hard to get to.
But today I view the world through adult eyes. It can be scary when that time comes, when the child bubble bursts and reality comes flooding in on a confused not-quite-adult who, in many cases, just wants the world to retreat and give them room to breathe. I think we all face a choice when that happens. The easiest choice is to find a new, larger bubble with other people that help you cope. This happens to a certain extent even in childhood when you drift towards a group of friends that you share common interests with. But what I am really talking about is far more complicated than that. I am not a neurologist or anything like that, but I do hold a degree in Molecular and Cellular Biology so I have learned about the brain, both during and after college. Our brain acts like a filter. We are flooded with sensory input that has to be prioritized so that we know how to respond to what we see, smell, feel, hear, and taste. But we also do it with ideas. We simplify things so that day to day life is manageable. Can you imagine if you had to constantly choose what to respond to at any given time from all the myriad of sensations hitting you at any given time? You may think that this is what you do, but your brain automatically dismisses most of the things you experience just because they aren't necessary to what you are consciously, or even unconsciously, trying to accomplish. It also forms generalizations so that you can make quicker decisions when it is necessary to react quickly. When you see a body of water, your brain assumes it is just like any other body of water: wet, possibly deep, can cause you to drown, great place to dispose of bodies. Now that was a roundabout, and probably boring, way of getting to this point. Many people do consciously what the brain does unconsciously. They have a belief, for instance a belief in god, and they view their world through the lens of that belief. It helps them understand what they experience. Or maybe people view their world through the lens of their job, like a doctor filtering everything through their medical training. It's not a perfect metaphor, but the idea is that the easy choice is to view the world through some sort of filter, to fall back on your beliefs or your training when the world at large becomes too overwhelming to process everything.
But I think there is a harder choice. Reality doesn't exist in any of those bubbles...it just is. There is, I believe, an ultimate reality. There is a reality that doesn't care who you are or what you know or what you believe. It doesn't care about anything...it just is. For instance, I am looking at a chair. A chair is complicated because it is man-made and we imbue it with a specific purpose. But within that context, the chair exists as a chair. My brain may be damaged and perceive it as a turtle, but it's still a chair. I may belong to a weird cult that chooses to worship the chair as a deity, but it's still a chair. So here is the harder choice. We can choose to face reality. We can choose to not accept at face value what is presented to us. Someone can call something a fact, but that does not make it a fact. If someone says something that is just obviously wrong, you can correct them. People can believe whatever they want in the privacy of their own head, but the instant something untrue and wrong leaves their lips, you can choose to tell them to stop talking and think. If someone dismisses an actual fact by saying, "well that's just your opinion," you can choose to not let the conversation end. That's the harder choice. To not let ignorance and bullheadedness propagate because if reality is dismissed as opinion then we as a species cannot move out of intellectual infancy and become more than we are. That's what this blog is about. I will question my own beliefs and the beliefs of other and strive to know what is actually reality. Be it science, or politics, or religion, or whatever, nothing is free from scrutiny. At times it will be a light-hearted look at pop-culture. At others it will be a ranting, raving bitch-fest at the lies that are told to advance an agenda. I sincerely hope that I learn something I've always "known" is not true. I want to make sure what I know is not just what I believe. I will not teach my daughter a convenient lie because the truth is too hard to get to.