One – We Know Almost Nothing
You, me, and the guy next door think we know all manner of things that identify who we are. For instance, most of us probably know how to screw in a lightbulb. Some of us know how to remove an infected appendix or repair a broken tooth or dock a puppy’s tail or write a blog post or build a house. These things are skills that are learned that have absolutely nothing to do with who we are.
We go through life thinking we are John, the preacher or Susan, the electrician, or Tim, the rebel, or Mary the righteous. We are also under the illusion that we are our bodies, yet our bodies are constantly in a state of flux. In the time it took you to read this sentence, millions of cells that make up your body have died and hopefully were replaced by new ones.
We also create a false image of who we are based on our biases and the biases of others. For instance, say I fail at attempting to do a task correctly. If my thoughts immediately conclude that “I am a failure” or “I am a loser” that would be false. Anytime we use the “I am” followed by a this or that, we are wrong. We should use that term as a stand-alone sentence when referencing who we are. Simply say, “I am.” Anything said after those two simple words is a false narrative.
To fill this hole in the knowledge of who we are and our purpose, we create stories. We create gods to explain the unexplainable. Now we think we know why everything happens the way it does. A god or gods ordered it to happen. Over the years we hear and read other scientific and philosophical ideas trying to explain who we are. The only way I have found that comes close to understanding who I am is by the elimination of all those things I am not.
All we really know is we were born and at some time during our life, we become keenly aware of our mortality. That’s it plain and simple.
Two – We have only now
Most human beings spend their lives living in the past or dreaming about a future that is always uncertain. We do this without the slightest inkling that this second will be the past one second from now. There is always only now. The past is gone, and the future is always a mystery.
The older we get, the more time we tend to spend living in a flawed version of the nostalgic past. When we’re young, we have our eyes firmly fixed on the future with little regard for what happened yesterday or a few years ago. Only wisdom will teach us that now is all we have. It’s fine to learn lessons from the past or remember the important things. It’s also fine to plan for the future because what we do now will influence the future’s probability. However, to dwell in either nonexistent time impedes our ability to correctly weigh those things and people we value now.
Three – Our perceptions tell us lies
We think our perceptions tell us the truth about the world around us. The fact is our perceptions lie to us all the time. You can depend on what you see, hear, smell, taste, or feel to give you false information. The media, politicians, and advertisers are masters at manipulating our beliefs and emotions by way of our senses. It’s a hard truth to realize the many ways we inadvertently allow our senses to lie to us. The only cure is to question everything your perceptions tell you. Will that new car really make you free and happy? Are immigrants really the cause of society’s woes? Do you really need to buy that expensive product to sanitize every surface in your house lest you fall victim to some horrible disease? (Keep in mind, fear sells a lot of products.)
Four – Poor choices are based on false beliefs
The choice in what we do, how we think, and live our lives is thought to be ours to make. Our choices can work on our behalf, but just as often they do not. In fact, many poor choices we make are based on false beliefs borne out of a lack of correct information. Our beliefs stem way on back to our childhood and progress throughout our lives often times changing. Our beliefs too often depend on outside influences which we fail to question.
Those influences include what we experience, what we are taught as children, what we hear and read from people we admire and respect. If I put my hand on a hot burner, my experience will cause me to choose not to do that again. If my mom or the consensus of the society in which I live tells me that a woman’s place is in the home, it may well influence my choice to not seek a profession outside the home. However, later in life maybe I will hear or read about successful women working outside the home, I may then change my belief. Always question your beliefs and look at the probability of them being the result of false information or half-truths.
Five – The hardest truth; impermanence
For me, the hardest truth of all comes with the realization that everything we care about will be torn away from us at some point in time. The person or thing we love, and value will die, or we will die. Either way, the net effect is the same.
For years, I have wrestled with this one and I would say as of today, my success is limited. I don’t concern myself about my own death other than to make certain that those left behind are cared for as best I can.
When they were young, every time my kids took the car to an event I would worry until they returned. I still worry that something horrible might happen to them.
Dealing with this is most succinctly covered in the Law of Unattachment taught by Gautama Buddha. Unfortunately, I have yet to master that when it comes to the people I cherish.
