Sunday, December 29, 2013

On Black Holes and Limbo

We live in a world where most people believe that their own world view is right. Be it scientists, liberals, conservatives, Catholics, Muslims, evangelical Christians, corporate lobbyists, the list can go on forever, for the most part they really and sincerely believe that their world view is the only correct one.

Can we all be right, or all be wrong? If I believe that there is a truth in our universe even if I don't know what it is, is that correct?

It's really hard to discuss these diverging world views too. If someone says our ancestors lived in tribes and their common belief was a genetic tool to keep them together, someone else may argue that genetic evolution has too many flaws in it to be taken seriously.

What an individual believes is based on her or his bottom line view. For some it's a creator, others an intelligent designer, for others it just happened. On a different scale beliefs involve everything from a dog eat dog world to one where helping your enemy is not out of question.

Some people believe what was taught them as children, and for others it's a life long quest to find something that works for them. Often we're not sure what we believe and our actions in differing circumstances reveals much about ourselves.

I went to a boarding school for the last years of my high school. I sawed a hole in the floor of my room in the closet which was directly over the closet on the floor underneath mine. These closets all had a thirty inch square crawl space over them so you could crawl a long ways in them if you didn't get stuck. You could even cross the hallway and get into the crawl space on the other sides closets. I had a buddy on the other side who sawed a hole too. We never really used our tunnel because it was much easier to use the door. Years later I heard we had become a legend for our renovations.

The dean of our dorm heard rumors about the hole and wanted to see it. I gladly showed him my handy work, never saying anything about my buddies side, and he asked me to cover it so I screwed a piece of plywood over it. When I covered that hole most of the beliefs I had been brought up with stayed inside it. Except for exam days, I spent most of my last two months at this school thumbing around Saskatchewan sometimes making it back in time for the evening meal, otherwise we'd just get into the pantry with our spare key, which is another story, and help ourselves.

When our beliefs fall into a hole and get covered it leaves us in limbo. Why beliefs get questioned is mostly due to hypocrisy. What people say and want you to believe are not backed up with actions or sane reasoning. Power is also a factor. People get on a power and control trip and beliefs seem to lose any relevance.

Which leaves us with limbo. Not heaven and not hell. A game with a boy with no name. A dance at a wake. Till we figure out what happens to stuff when it falls into a black hole it's just a place we'll have to get used to. Will it take the black hole of war till we care no more for dominance, will we self destruct in our certainties?  Limbo ain't all that bad. It has a sense of humor. Your stuck.

No comments :