This humanity of ours is so odd and complex.
The world we are born into shapes the internal model of how things are, and how they are supposed to work. This construction is the lens in which the world is viewed. How one views the world operates consciously and unconsciously. Our experiences condition us; what we will believe the world is. And we work to preserve what we hold to know true. When it is all that you know, one clings to the construction that gives them safety and comfort.
Expanding this circle of knowledge is an arduous task. Expanding empathy is an arduous task. Expanding vision is an arduous task. And as this ever growing frontier is brought in and explored, people react to it a myriad of ways: some allow the new truth to revolutionize their world, some create an interpretation of the truth to justify their prior world view, and some reject it all together. In order to push the narrow windows of our world view, it takes tremendous energy to overcome the natural state of conservative inertia. The destruction of the world view that you were born in to, and conditioned into is a painful process. And sometimes people will do anything to avoid pain, including inflicting pain. There is always a lurking fear that this conceptualization of the world will fall apart if infecting ideas invade. The fear of the other, the different is conditioned into us by conflict and fear.
Every battle is a clash of realities, models of the world in the minds of humans.
In this clash, the other is thought to be the enemy, the threat. Attempting to match conflicting world views is no simple task, and easily creates walls. People jump upon conclusions and assumptions. Stories are retold again and again, until the self-soothing gesture becomes the only truth that one knows.
Finding and accepting the truth is the grand challenge of humanity. And the greatest hindrance to truth is prior representations and convictions, an intuition or sense of what the world is, what it should be. Yet, many times truth varies very far away from what feels to be true and what is actually true. When one is confronted with what one perceives to be an attack to their belief system, he or she may be quick to reject it.
The question is should all internal representations be accepted or respected? Or does belief require prodding and careful examination?
I chose the latter. Merely having a belief does not garnish it with the right to respecting it. But, varying belief systems have the possibility to try on another view of the world. Different belief systems give opportunities for empathy and tolerance. Sometimes when a belief system is destructive it is necessary to deconstruct it. Perhaps respect for a belief system comes from its implications and how the believer treats others. Yet, regardless of what one believes, the truth should trump every world view. The truth should not be dismissed. More so, a whole and full truth is necessary to avoid miring ourselves in partial truths that sometimes serve our beliefs, agendas, and egos.
A broad, complex, and linked conception of reality must be used to get to the full truth. When one takes the mindset of unity, connections emerge and walls quickly begun to tumble.
Let’s look for the truth, and put away our fears. A wide view of the world is possible.