What you Think and what you Know
I know personal experience is among the most disputable types of evidence, but I can’t help letting it become a factor. I’m simply astonished at the “God effect” in my own life. It can easily be said that it’s a ruse of my own thinking. But if one is sincere (and that’s the measure – like Lucy in Lewis’ Narnia wardrobe – she knows what she saw because she wasn’t trying to see anything) every day in seeking to explore and discover God – if one is absolutely sincere – then it becomes a very complicated ruse to maintain. If God is my puppet then I must both pull His strings and forget they exist at the same time. It’s certainly possible to accomplish such a feat, but it’s made much more complicated by the presence of sincerity.
How can it be that I simply can’t seem to put my head together in any way other than while I’m on my knees? I feel so clumsy and unacedemic by making such an exclamation. I can only offer up the fact that do I so because the constancy of this effect has become too astonishing to ignore. It is utterly astonishing that it never fails to be that the angle of me knees corresponds to the quality of my headspace.
Though I try, though I even greatly desire to be able to put my head together without the use of my knees, I can’t. If this is all a ruse, to be honest, I’d like to trade it for one that leaves me far more independent and far more self-reliant.
With all these things in mind it becomes necessary to acknowledge that sometimes what you think is more important than what you know. Take marriage as an example. How much can you really “know” before you make your choice? Unmarried people think you can know a lot, married people know different. Ultimately one of the most important lifestyle decisions you’ll ever make is more about what you think than what you know.
I understand the value of the “rules” that preclude the use of personal experience (as astonishing as it may seem to the one who’s experience it is). You are the only one who can describe your own experience – who knows how honest you are being? Who knows how objective your observations are? It’s fraught with problems.
It is the foundation of all kinds of cults and leadership toxicity. At it’s very base, it’s a dressed version of “just trust me, I know.” And it sounds horrible, except when you consider, essentially, that is exactly what your investment advisor has to say about the stock market (and he or she holds your retirement in their hands).
I understand that value of the “rules” that preclude the use of personal experience, but I also understand that what you think is sometimes more important than what you know. Strictly speaking, no one can “know” what the stock market will do. But there are individuals like Warren Buffet who’ve built a career for more than 30 years by acting on what could not be known. What they thought was better than what they could have known – and they have billions to show for it. Equally, to be fair, there is probably a larger number of investors who thought better than they knew and were wrong.
I am reminded of the Cassandra of mythology. Blessed to know the future, cursed to be ignored in spite of it. I am a prisoner of my own astonishing experience: for 17 years I’ve relied on Christ in utter honesty and objectivity. I’ve put the weight of my future on a set of ideas that would need God in order to work. They have worked. I can be so deeply convinced only because I know how sincerely I’ve trusted - without “fudging” the result, without aiding God’s cause, without pulling puppet strings to make a false idea seem true.
I know none of this is truly transferable – no one can repeat my experiment in a lab and compare results. But the trust test is for each of us alone to measure the depth of our sincerity. No one will ever know how honestly I let my life fall on these ideas and how honestly these ideas held.
But at the same time, if anyone is interested in a “tip” not unlike investment advice about the stock market, let me say this: I’m in the midst of a 17 year run. So I’ll tell you what I think (and, perhaps, what no one else can know): I think He’s there. I think it so much I think I bloody well know it. Oh, and one more thing, I think your knees are tied directly to your head space.
How can it be that I simply can’t seem to put my head together in any way other than while I’m on my knees? I feel so clumsy and unacedemic by making such an exclamation. I can only offer up the fact that do I so because the constancy of this effect has become too astonishing to ignore. It is utterly astonishing that it never fails to be that the angle of me knees corresponds to the quality of my headspace.
Though I try, though I even greatly desire to be able to put my head together without the use of my knees, I can’t. If this is all a ruse, to be honest, I’d like to trade it for one that leaves me far more independent and far more self-reliant.
With all these things in mind it becomes necessary to acknowledge that sometimes what you think is more important than what you know. Take marriage as an example. How much can you really “know” before you make your choice? Unmarried people think you can know a lot, married people know different. Ultimately one of the most important lifestyle decisions you’ll ever make is more about what you think than what you know.
I understand the value of the “rules” that preclude the use of personal experience (as astonishing as it may seem to the one who’s experience it is). You are the only one who can describe your own experience – who knows how honest you are being? Who knows how objective your observations are? It’s fraught with problems.
It is the foundation of all kinds of cults and leadership toxicity. At it’s very base, it’s a dressed version of “just trust me, I know.” And it sounds horrible, except when you consider, essentially, that is exactly what your investment advisor has to say about the stock market (and he or she holds your retirement in their hands).
I understand that value of the “rules” that preclude the use of personal experience, but I also understand that what you think is sometimes more important than what you know. Strictly speaking, no one can “know” what the stock market will do. But there are individuals like Warren Buffet who’ve built a career for more than 30 years by acting on what could not be known. What they thought was better than what they could have known – and they have billions to show for it. Equally, to be fair, there is probably a larger number of investors who thought better than they knew and were wrong.
I am reminded of the Cassandra of mythology. Blessed to know the future, cursed to be ignored in spite of it. I am a prisoner of my own astonishing experience: for 17 years I’ve relied on Christ in utter honesty and objectivity. I’ve put the weight of my future on a set of ideas that would need God in order to work. They have worked. I can be so deeply convinced only because I know how sincerely I’ve trusted - without “fudging” the result, without aiding God’s cause, without pulling puppet strings to make a false idea seem true.
I know none of this is truly transferable – no one can repeat my experiment in a lab and compare results. But the trust test is for each of us alone to measure the depth of our sincerity. No one will ever know how honestly I let my life fall on these ideas and how honestly these ideas held.
But at the same time, if anyone is interested in a “tip” not unlike investment advice about the stock market, let me say this: I’m in the midst of a 17 year run. So I’ll tell you what I think (and, perhaps, what no one else can know): I think He’s there. I think it so much I think I bloody well know it. Oh, and one more thing, I think your knees are tied directly to your head space.
posted by CSW at
6:35 PM
1 Comments:
I have a very nasty habit of cutting the strings that attach my knee's to my head....
Thanks for the reminder CS.
I'm sorry Jesus.
By
jeremy postal, at 2:44 AM
Post a Comment
<< Home