Killing in the Name of...

I just want to say a few words on the school shooting that happened a few days ago at Virginia Tech. Cho Seung-hui executed 33 students in their dorms and classes, and then killed himself. The reasons for doing it, he wrote, was because he was angry at “rich kids”, "deceitful charlatans", and “debauchery” on campus. But these are common on college campuses. So could there be copy cats? Do other college students feel alienated? Of course. But is it really a case of alienation, or something else?

In my final years of college I studied the psychology of suicide bombers and others who have intention for mass slaughter. They often shared similar experiences such as losing things that were of intense value to them and consequently felt desolation, despair, and anger. But almost everyone in existence experiences great pains and losses and they don’t go on a shooting spree. So what is the difference between those that kill and those that don’t?

Is it mental illness? The media was quick to mention that Cho Seung-hui had a history of mental illness and indeed most killers have it too. Killing innocent lives because you’re having a bad time is certainly not rational. There is plenty of good one could do if they truly felt that they wanted a change. People who kill or tell others to kill randomly simply have a block in their brain saturated with justifications preventing them from rational thought. Why is killing irrational? Because it doesn’t solve ANYTHING.

I think there is more to killing than just because of mental illness, anger, fear, or humiliation. Because one could turn to expressing themselves in art, like Cho first did by writing his two violent plays. There is a big difference between writing, drawing, or creating violence in a non-violent form of medium than actually doing it. No, I think the reason people kill is because of greed. To impose one’s misery on an innocent, to use violence for dramatic purposes, to create dread and suffering among those who contributed in no way to the suffered is a selfish act of grand proportions. Wrong is too weak of a word. These people create atrocities. These people shut off the knowledge that their victims are human beings and lose empathy for them, simultaneously nurturing a perception that they are the harbingers and the martyrs of their cause.

I’m not saying don’t stand for a cause. But if you need to bring others down to the point of death in order to raise yourself higher…you probably need to rethink what the fuck you’re doing.

A night in the life

All day I was in a Real Estate training class. Sick. From 9-5 I was blowing my nose, excusing myself to go to the bathroom regularly all the while learning about taxation and appraisal and law and contracts. I come home, completely exhausted and immediately crash in my bed for a few hours. I don’t know if I dreamt about it, but I was definitely jarred from my sleep with an intense craving for KFC. But it was weird, I wasn’t really hungry, and I could have just went back to sleep. But I really couldn’t, because something was telling me to get out of my warm bed and sleepy state, put clothes on, and drive to KFC. However, before I decided to drive to KFC, the time is 8:00 pm, I decide I really want to read more of The Alchemist, which I had read half of last night. I read for one hour, but I decided I really needed to go to KFC for this meal that I just can’t get off my mind.

I drive to KFC, which is very close by me, and all the while I am thinking ‘this meal is going to be so good, I have no idea what God is intending for me at this place’. Is something wonderful going to happen? Will I come across a revelation or an epiphany as I’m savoring the delicious mix of herbs and spices smothered in ketchup and grease? (Yes, this is how I think). I was livid with excitement.

But I arrive to notice that KFC closes at 9:00pm. It was 9:05 PM. What the fuck? What was going on? God…don’t do this shit to me. Why would you wake me and even make me linger in my room to read more of the Alchemist, only increasing my appetite causing stomach acid to churn my belly? There was no other substitute. It had to be KF fucking C. Is there another one nearby? There isn’t. I look across to the Jack in the Box. You’ve got to be kidding.

Somehow, I felt that a huge injustice was done and immediately I sat down on the concrete bench they have in front of their store and I contemplated what happened. How am I supposed to trust my relationship with God, my trusting of my feelings, if I get so gravely mislead? This isn’t even about KFC. God did the same to me with my denied Fullbright application. With my dropping out of Grad school. I had dreams that these are my goals and I must follow them. So why would God make me fail?

Everyone tries to figure out their purpose in this world right? And when you figure out who you are, and you are in love with yourself and the world around you, you try to better yourself. Because who would make themselves worse when they are in love? And also because you love the thing, you try to figure out more about it, so you can love it better. Understand its needs. What it takes to care it. On a side note I never understood why my parents kept a garden until I asked my mother about it one day and she said that it teaches her how to care for things. Someone’s love can actually be measured by their actions. If they truly love their surroundings, they will want to see them flourish. So everything gets better around the person.

Now to continue on with my plant metaphor, sometimes a gardener needs to trim the plant, to take it’s fruit off and leave it bare. And the gardener does this because they love the plant, and don’t want it to die too soon. They want to see it produce perennial fruits and flowers, which means the branches have to be cut off every season. It’s interesting that this is necessary for the pants to grow to new heights.

So this is what a failed reliance on a trust in a gut feeling to go to KFC produced.: a serious contemplation on the reason for frustration, disappointment, and unsatisfaction. Maybe that’s because satisfaction is point B. It’s the finish line. There is nowhere else to go. But being denied, the feeling of unsatisfaction, the sense of injustice, is the true motivator. They are the wheels of change. I would say they are perhaps the most important human emotions behind love. So Zach de la Rocha was right, our anger is a gift. For it ultimately helps us know what is just and good.

Learn to embrace frustration, for in it lies contemplation, and messages, and wonders of the world. Pain; pleasure. They are merely different sides of the same coin. Misfortune and pain are truly blessings. For they are capable of invoking the same intensity, and consciousness heightening, as pleasure and satisfaction. With one added benefit: giving the failed a dream. And a mission. And to be on a mission is to be realizing and living your true purpose in life. And every moment is sacred, and God channels through you. And you get placed at the center of the universe and everything conspires for you to achieve your goal. Because it’s what you picked for yourself before you were born, and God favors those who want to create and achieve their personal story. Because courage shows spirit, and merely possessing it, especially during moments of defeat, makes the universe bend to you.

No I did not get KFC to open, there still are limitations. But I did have my mind fed, which may not have happened had I fed my body. So the moral of the story is: even though I may think I know what I want, like getting a Fulbright scholarship, or going to grad school, or even KFC, they may not be the true treasures that my soul is seeking. It is only necessary to embark on the mission, to follow your dream. Achieving it is only the secondary purpose, and subordinate to the path itself.

And here I thought I wanted chicken…

A Life

I was dreaming. But I didn’t know I was dreaming.
I dreamt about flying.
I dreamt about love.
I dreamt about exotic scented roses and brilliantly colored horses.
About eating the sweetest tasting morsels lying in the softest feathered pillows.
But I awoke.
And when I awoke I wondered how long I had been asleep.
An hour? Two hours? A day? Years? Centuries?
Stunned, I looked about myself for something familiar.
Is this home?
Can darkness even be called a home?
“HELLO!”
ELLo…
ello…
My voice echoes throughout the sanctuary.
“IS THERE ANYBODY OUT THERE???”
OUT there…
out there…
Somehow, I know that no one is out there, but hearing my voice feels comforting.
Reassuring.
I make strange noises to hear them boomerang.
“OBLADIBLADA!”
BLAda…
blada…
As fun as the game seemed at first, I grow tired of it just as fast.
I scold myself for even momentarily enjoying it.
How can hearing distortions of my own silliness possibly have any redemptive value?
I conclude that it has none and I begin feeling my way through the darkness.
Cold. Wet. Serrated. What kind of place am I in?
Frustration sets in.
Panic grips me.
“Ok, its ok, just take it easy.” I tell myself
I must relax and concentrate: where could I possibly be?
And then I hear it.
A rolling wave off in the distance.
WOOOSHHHH!
What was that?
WOOOSHHHH!
Has that sound always been there?
Why didn’t I hear it earlier?
WOOOSHHHH!
As I begin crawling toward the sound, I feel sharp edges on the ground that easily slice my virgin hands and draw blood.
If it wouldn’t be for the layer of maggots and grit blanketing the earth, which smelled viciously like stench-decay and broccoli, I almost wouldn’t mind.
The stench makes my stomach churn.
I swallow bile.
WAWOOOOOOSSSSSHHHHHH!
As I neared my fascination, the vibrations crunched underneath me like thunder.
The hairs on my body defied the thick layer of blood that stuck to me and became erect.
Shivers crawled up my body like slow lizards and then down again.
Chills played my spinal cord like a xylophone.
And then I saw it.
A glistening sword sticking out of the wall diagonally into the ground.
I had never seen anything like it before.
Indeed, I had never seen anything at all before.
I had only ever witnessed apparitions and they never looked like this.

Blinded by curiosity, I became numb to the scratches and filth as the sword pulled me in.
Everything else escaped my mind.
Pain, understanding, rationality, all took the backseat.
Maddness gripped me.
I couldn’t take it anymore
Then it hit me: it had to end.
As a raging bull charges against the blood-red of the matador’s cape, I charged against the magnificent white light.
One of us will break.
At least it’ll end the awful smell of this bloody putrid pigsty.
But as I was expecting to be split open by its feather-line, razor sharp edge, I was instead stoned by the wall that it jutted out from.
Apparently, this was not the type of sword that pierces.
No, this was an illusion of a sword.
One that appears to have form but is only visual.
I passed my fingers through it and saw the shadows dance on the ground.
Strangely enough, it reminded me of my dreams.
But then I focused on my actual fingers, as I had never before seen them.
I felt a surge of happiness that I could actually see my own body.
I have a form.
I exist.
Those fingers are mine!
But then shame gripped me as I noticed their discolor and damage from crawling towards the light.
Nonetheless, it was a small price to pay for the satisfaction of knowledge.
Apparently, information has its price.

I turned my attention to the point in the wall where the light pierced through.
I noticed that there was writing on the wall.
As I peered closer, I read: “Whoever wishes to break this wall must use their head. Either the wall or the head shall break, whichever proves to be weaker.”
What a curious thing to write on a wall, I thought.
And I pondered it.
Rolling over its meaning in my mind.
What could it possibly mean?
WAWOOOOOOSSSSSHHHHHH!
The sound jolted back into my mind
I positioned my eye to look directly at the sword’s hilt to see the origin of the sound but was met by pure white light that pierced my eyeball.
I flew backward in pain covering my eyeball only to land on what felt like dozens of erect two inch nails, cushioned only by creepy-crawly guts.
I screamed in agony and frustration.
How can I use my head when all I feel is pain in this hell?
I became reminded of the bull in me which demanded a blood-red color to ram its skull through.
The wall.
I lowered my head, closed my eyes, and charged.
But I didn’t hit the wall.

At first the only I thing I noticed was the lack of shards stabbing my feet.
Instead, they were replaced by something warm, soft, and grainy.
I jolted to a stop but was afraid to open my eyes.
From underneath my eyelids all I could see was red, colored by the extreme light enveloping me.
I formed a slit with my eyelids, which sent a fresh shock of pain into the back of my skull.
But it lasted only a second.
I opened both my eyes and fell down to my knees.
I was on a beach.
I recognized it from my dreams.
The clean white sand underneath me.
The sun above me.
The vast blue ocean in front of me creating waves; the source of the sound I heard in the cave.
The cave!
I turned around to look at the direction I came from and was all of a sudden surprised to no longer see the wall that I thought I had charged through.
There was only a small opening to a cave that plunged down into the earth, with only darkness visible from its eternally descending hole.
But my attention couldn’t linger any further on that miserable, destitute, false place.
I was in paradise! There was a feast awaiting my senses!
I closed my eyes and felt the warmness of the sun penetrate me.
Ecstasy shook my body.
My heart leaped in my mouth.
This must be The Good.
This must be what I have always dreamt about.
This must be the source of happiness.
I prostrated myself before the sun to worship it:
“I have found The Light! It is the answer!”
But as I opened my eyes to behold my beloved, I noticed that wisps of smoke began to separate my eyes from the sun.
The wisps of smoke soon became dark balls eclipsing the ball of fire.
“No! NOOO!! You can’t take her from me!”
But the smoke did take her, and the thunder took my shouting.
And instead gave me rain.
And it rained.
And it poured.
And it seemed like it was never going to stop.
Is this it? Must I now worship the rain?
Interestingly enough, I developed a liking to the rain.
It rejuvenated my skin and washed the blood and grim off my naked body.
What a gift! Truly, the rain is superior to the sun if it can wash away the filth and make my body look like new!
“Rain! I will worship you, I will give you thanks, and I will praise your everlasting glory!”
And then the rain stopped.
And the smoke cleared.
And the sun, which I just openly decried, reappeared.
Humiliation and rage gripped me.
I thought only the cave was false, but apparently I couldn’t trust the outside world either.
First the sun betrayed me, then the rain.
They both left me when I swore allegiance.
If I can’t put trust into anything, what am I supposed to believe in?

I hung my head in depression and gazed at the puddles on the beach that the rain left behind.
But I noticed something new now that the sun was shining again.
The sun was reflecting in the puddle.
And the light was forming letters.
I drew closer.
T…R…U…T…H
Words!
No! Not just words, whole phrases reciting theories, stories about far away lands, my innermost thoughts, and prophesies about time yet to come.
I was so sad to see the rain come, but I now understood its purpose.
How beautiful it made everything around me.
I still loved the sun for giving me light, but now I welcomed the rain as well.
So I made puddles my bed and called the bedrock my home.
I spent my days sand sculpting myself sand sculpting.
And when the rain comes and washes it away, I am happy.
For it gives me a new opportunity to start over.
“Home!” I proclaim, “Home at last!”

Self-Hatred

Most of our lives we are looking for recognition, praise, and esteem. Usually from others. Whether it’s our family, friends, lovers, or particular audience, the choices we make regarding our careers, our property, our activities, all have something to do with how we want people to perceive us. Think about how empty you feel when you DON’T receive the signs of approval. It makes you think that you did something wrong, or that you’re failing.

So we are always getting newer clothes to go with the fashion, better cars to show off, work harder at work to impress others and so on to continuously receive assurance and recognition from others. Peer support builds esteem, that you are doing the right thing, that you are successful.

However, here’s the problem: assurances and recognition of one’s worth coming from the outside need to come all the time because they aren’t coming from within. Most of us lack a deep appreciation of ourselves and need constant reassurance to believe that we are beautifully complicated and worth loving.

Self-esteem is, in fact, a prerequisite for growth. The problem with most people is not that they think too much of themselves; it is that they think too little. There are many of us who actively dislike ourselves and spend days, even a lifetime, wishing we were someone else more likable. How we destroy ourselves in self-hatred! How we turn ourselves upside down, inside out, in desperate attempts to make ourselves OK to others! Nothing works except being OK to oneself and a conscious decision to become your own best friend.

To give you a religious perspective on this, the greatest sin in the three monotheistic religions is ingratitude to the many gifts of God. There can be no gratitude if there is no acknowledgement, and there can be no acknowledgement if there is no self-esteem. We have to be aware of the many fine qualities that we have been imbued with. A refusal to do so, even under the garb of humility or modesty, is tantamount to a denial of the blessing of God. How often do we recognize the wonderful gifts that others have and yet deny our own? How many times do we praise others for their kindness and yet remain blind to what we show others? Recognition of the gifts in our lives, of our talents and the miracles we perform, is a precondition for giving thanks to God.

The Commandment to “Love your neighbor as yourself” presupposes that you love yourself. If you go around feeling worthless or undeserving, then how can you desire love and kindness for others? Similarly in Islam there is a Hadith where the Prophet said “None of you truly believe until you love for your fellow what you love for yourself.” Again, one must love themselves in order to love others.

But what about pride? Shouldn’t we be worried about the same Christian teachings that instruct us that pride is one of the seven deadly sins and the Islamic teaching that no person with one iota of pride shall enter Paradise? If one is to acknowledge that one gets along well with people, or that one is a really good teacher, or has a beautiful face, is this not pride that is condemned by God?

No. Self-esteem is the respect that we have for ourselves because of who we are, together with an acknowledgement that this is from God. Pride is having an arrogant attitude towards others; meaning one is a somebody because they regard the other person to be a nobody.

Self-esteem is an affirmation of the self because “I am” and not because “you are not”. Indeed, “you are not and therefore I am” is the opposite of self-esteem as Eric Fromm explains in Escape from Freedom:

Selfishness is not identical with self-esteem, but its very opposite. Selfishness is a kind of greediness. Like all greediness, it contains an insatiability, as a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction…This person is basically not fond of him[her]self at all, but deeply dislikes him[her]self. Selfishness is rooted in this very lack of fondness of oneself.

I am chosen because I am chosen, not because you are not. There is only one me; no one else has ever come into this world or will ever come into it that is an exact replica of me. My characteristics, my features, my experiences, are all uniquely mine. This is truly a manifestation of God. I am unique and so are you.

We must, therefore, cherish our bodies and the challenges that confront us. We must be honest with ourselves and others to build our self-esteem. The more we accept ourselves, the more we are liberated from doubt about whether others will approve of and accept us. To conclude, I will leave you with the words of Thomas Harris who says in I’m OK, You’re OK: “The feeling of being OK doesn’t mean that I have overcome all my inadequacies. It only means that I refuse to be paralyzed by them.”=

Institutions

To me, institutions are prisons. They not only inhibit people from making free decisions, but they also prescribe a certain way of thinking or acting. Since I believe that compulsion goes against the fundamental nature of human beings to make free and uncoerced decisions, I see institutions as generally a bad thing. To me, they are merely vehicles for people to exercise their lust for power by corralling others to follow their prescriptions.

So you can understand my point a little better, let’s examine the dictionary.com definition of an institution:

1. The act of instituting
2.
a. A custom, practice, relationship, or behavioral pattern of importance in the life of a community or society: the institutions of marriage and the family
b. Informal. One long associated with a specified place, position, or function
3.
a. An established organization or foundation, especially one dedicated to education, public service, or culture
b. The building or buildings housing such an organization
c. A place for the care of persons who are destitute, disabled, or mentally ill

The definitions give the general impression that an institution is a custom, a practice, or a behavioral pattern. Giving presents during ascribed holidays. Saying “I’m sorry” or “I love you” when you mean something else. Saying a prayer but not focusing on the words. Ascribing to a religion but not practicing its doctrine. Marriage. Subcultures. Traditions. Routines. Addictions. Labels. These, their derivatives, and many others, are all institutions.

Notice that the final definition of an institution is a place for the “destitute, disabled, or mentally ill.” This means two things. The first is that institutions are absolutely necessary for those who fit one of these three and the second is that anyone who is not one of the three does not need an institution. I began this article by saying institutions are generally a bad thing and this group of people is the exception to the rule. People with actual problems should go to an institution. Heck, even people who don’t fit one of the three can join an institution once in a while. We don’t want to think all the time, let the institution do it. Why draft up a better agreement when the institution already hammered out the best possible plan? If you know you don’t want to have sex with different people and want the bond of holy matrimony, then by all means get married. But understand that the institutions you join do place responsibilities and a failure to uphold them makes institutions very unhappy. So if you do them, do them by the rules. Otherwise, you must forge your own path ahead and be totally open-minded to everything that comes your way. That is what being free from an institute means: free from any preconceived notions and a full use of your capable, rational, intelligent mind.

To me, institutions are anything that traps a person from making a free, unfettered, and purposeful decision and the reason why that’s bad is because the ability to consider and choose determines the actual ethical quality of an individual. See, an institution takes away the individual’s ability to choose, thereby nullifying any moral intention behind the person’s actions. In other words, the ethical quality of the elements of which we are constituted (soul, heart, and body), the faculties by which we are characterized (perception, intelligence, and imagination) and the actions we produce are determined only by the guidance our conscience gives them. This means that the human conscience must be as unique and solitary as the physical vessel that carries it.

But why is a high ethical conscience even important? Because only this standard has the capability to raise the individual above blood, self-interest, or clans and will ensure self-reliance and responsibility to no one but themselves. You will never have to partake in anyone else’s untruthfulness, treachery, injustice, or oppression, even if it’s your family, friends, or coworkers that are corrupting your character.

But more importantly, shunning institutions and practicing true individuality brings complete confidence in one’s awareness and recognition of treasures that are not visible to people who are caught in the prisons of institutions. A fish that lives in an aquarium and has never seen the vast expanse of the ocean cannot understand what real freedom is. Furthermore, treasure is not found in populated areas. It is found in barren and remote places. If treasure was accessible to the masses then it wouldn’t be treasure would it? It would just be ordinary.

I’m not saying we can do without institutions or that they’re inherently bad. What I am saying is most people don’t need institutions, meaning customs and behavioral patterns, but they bring various ones upon themselves needlessly by blindly following established norms and never experience the excitement of real freedom. Thankfully, people who follow institutions don’t necessarily cause harm to those who don’t which means it’s no sweat off my back if you don’t heed my advice. But my purpose in sharing this with those of you who do is not to condemn you (you’ve already done that to yourself), but to liberate you. Use your brain in the capacity that it was made: weigh the options, decide on a path. Let every experience be an opportunity to learn more about yourself and the world around you. Because that’s what this life is all about.

truth vs. Truth (part IV)

People often confuse the truths that they believe in as ultimate truths. But the supposed superiority of your beliefs does not put you in a superior position. The purpose of this article is to distinguish the difference between capital “T” Truth versus our own lower case “t” truth.

I have a problem with any religion, group, or individual that holds an exclusivist agenda. All biases, all discriminations, all pride says more about the accuser than the accused. Prejudices about the other are a way of holding on to what we perceive as the known. In our ignorance and fear of the other we elevate ourselves to the level of absolutes which take the place of God as an object of worship. The commitment to our clan and our belief in the “truth” acquire a greater value than actual “Truth.” When we make statements where we say we “know something” it isn’t because we know it at all, but instead a deep need to label things to satisfy our egos of our value, not because it’s actually true.

Does God care about labels? Suppose I show you two cups, one containing crap and the other containing a delicacy. The cup containing crap is marked “delicacy” while the one marked “crap” contains the delicacy. Which cup is more valuable to you if you can see beyond the label? In the same way, our deeds and beliefs are valued by their spirit rather than their material or physical dimensions. A priest can condemn a youth for taking drugs, but does not see the emptiness that modernity causes in the youth’s soul. The priest thinks that the “obvious good” is a scathing sermon whereby drug takers and dealers are going to be dispatched to the lowest depths of hell. How much does his sermon really, and not seemingly, help?

The Qu’ran has a verse that says “Their flesh reaches not Allah, nor their blood, but it is your righteousness that reaches Him.” Similarly, Paul in the Bible says it is possible “to give ourselves to be burnt at the stake and for it not to be an act of love.” How strange that people can actually be prepared to die and kill for their commitment to what they see as the truth, and yet for this commitment to be based on lies and denial. People are so confident; they love to point to their knowledge or experience to back up their beliefs. A college degree, living in a country for 20 years, or being an “expert” does not guarantee anything. Yes, I do not deny that you may know about the subject, or that you have extensive experience, or that you occupy a superior position, but what about it? From what perspective were you looking at things? What side were you on? What was your agenda?

There is much truth in the idea that those who shout loudest against something usually feel most personally threatened by it – and often this “it” that they feel threatened by is actually or feared to be located deep within themselves. In the same way that fanatics resort to screaming certainties as a way of camouflaging their own doubts, our fear of whatever we demonize is a shield against our own deep-seated real or feared internal other.

We need to ask what exactly it is that we are afraid of; is it the loss of our own faith? Is it a loss of power or of authority? Is it our own sense of masculinity? If it is, then is it not more rewarding to look deep into ourselves and personal histories and study this hunger for power, this desire for authority and our own deep-seated sexual insecurity?

It is not enough to say that you are on the side of truth. Because who’s truth is it? One of dogma, doctrine, tradition, culture, tribalism, selfishness, reason, the oppressed, the powerful? The truth of men with fragile egos or that of battered women? The truth of Muslims or of Jews? The truth of evangelical Christians or pluralist Christians?

There may be millions of truths that are superficialy true. But what happens when two people’s truth’s conflict? Up until this article, I have stressed that we must be conscious of our actions and motivations and intentions to discern what truth is. However, there are many different truths that people hold, and they can’t all be right, especially if we’re talking about God and an ultimate Truth. Projections and conceptions, especially of God, do not make it so. The Qu’ran twice mentions that “Allah is free from what they ascribe to him.” In other words, all our doctrinal formulations and perceptions of Allah are just those; as for Allah he is eternally greater. Allah is not the greatest, as the statement Allahu Akbar is often mistakenly translated, but simply “greater.” Greater than the prisons of any historical or religious community, greater than any football team or political party, greater than any sides of war and greater than all our projections. The invitation to understanding God is therefore one of transcendence, to go beyond ourselves and what we can understand.

Therefore, we need to be balanced in our views about the people with whom we work and about those with whom we refuse to work; the people who disagree with us are not necessarily the brothers and sisters of Satan nor are the people with whom we agree angels. There is no White person or Black person; people are only found in various degrees of combinations; if there is anything essential about the human condition then it is greyness. We only pretend that our position is rock solid (and any student of basic geology will tell you that not even rocks are solid).

I don’t know what ultimate Truth is, I don’t know what God wants, but I’m certain that if there is one it must be one based on love and reverence for all of God’s people. Our diversity is a testament to God’s love and will for diversity. If there is a “Truth,” then it is for us not to have “truths.”

Instead, recognize the God in all of us, and the God in everything. God is not someone who sits on a cloud disconnected from our lives. He is in the mountain and in the space in between the mountains, and in the water surrounding the mountains. We don’t questions the existence of mountains or rivers; their mere presence is sufficient reason for them continuing to be there and for us to enjoy them. Unlike mountains, the fact that social norms exist is not sufficient enough for them to be. Styles of clothing, ways of dealing with people, judgments, stereotypes, need to be continuously reexamined.

If I may offer one word of advise, it would be to listen carefully to others, both to what they are saying and to what they are not saying. Someone, I forget who, said “To “listen” to another soul as a condition of disclosure and discovery may be the greatest service that any human being ever performed for another.” I believe there is Truth in that.

Intention vs. Truth (Part III)

So let’s do a recap. Words can be a powerful tool to express emotions and knowledge. However, due to their inherent lack of physical presence, actions are more trustworthy. Actions in and of themselves, however, are also not trustworthy because it is necessary to look at the intention behind it to determine its true purpose. Therefore, up to here, I have slowly built my case up that the intention behind the action is the truest indicator of what’s real.

This article proposes that even if someone has a clear intention, and successfully accomplishes the act, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the truth. If someone kills in the name of God, and sincerely believes it, does that mean God sanctioned the man’s death? If a spouse hits the other and says they did it because they loved them, and honestly believe that, does it make it ok?

The Qur’an has a good verse which says “It is possible that you like something and yet it is not good for you” (Q. 2:216) You don’t need to be Muslim or religious to understand this. Cigarettes are obviously a destructive tool but millions of people willingly, consciously, and intentionally smoke. Many of these same people exercise, or eat healthy, are successful, or have family. Do they want to kill themselves? More likely than not they will say no. So does their action and intention contrast with a greater truth about themselves? Is there an independent objective truth? Or is all truth subjective?

If truth is simply subjective, then that would mean that all people’s perceptions are accurate. That would make Jews evil. Muslims, terrorists. Christians, idol worshipers. American women, fat. Mexicans, lazy. Stereotypes, racist opinions, and pure delusion would all be true. Of course you could say that it’s still truth, except it’s only the individual’s truth. Even though we can only understand the world through our senses so that our conception of reality is built exclusively on perception which becomes our own unique truth (like an “alternate reality”), you can not say that any one person’s truth is absolute. Sure it’s what they perceive, but it doesn’t necessarily make it so.

Accepting this should lead to two conclusions. One, that you must respect and tolerate other people who disagree with you and not try to change or condemn them. Because even if you know for a fact that they are incorrect, chances are you are also incorrect about things you’re certain about. This is the second conclusion you should reach and it should be quite humbling for most of us. The acceptance that nothing you know can be taken as true or real.

But why should any of this matter? If the steak tastes good to you, it’s good, regardless if the chef told you it was marinated in urine but only threw spice on it to mask the taste. Right? I dunno, the fact that it was marinated in urine kind of does matter to me. Because I know I would rather pick one marinated differently if I had the choice.

The ability to make good choices is contingent upon the options that are available. But the only way to research different options is to understand that nothing you know can be for certain and nothing that anybody else knows is certain either. So you must approach every moment as a new one. You must be open to new ideas and experiences. Your past stays with you, whether you like it or not. But it’s not a burden on you, unless you choose it to be.

There is something liberating in the idea that one can be in charge of one’s own choices; that one is not a helpless victim of an environment. However, the choices we make can’t always be self-centered. In some ways, we will always be driven by self-serving motives. The question is whether we regard the sanctity of others by our intentions and actions (and words), as well as our willingness to look our motivations in the face and recognize them accurately for what they are. After all, desperate as we are to relish the shortcomings of others or to point out their mistakes, we must turn to ourselves. It is only a caring and gentle self-esteem that is going to enable us to grow, and thereby change our perception of the disliked other even when we cannot change their behavior.

But I digress. Ultimately, we don’t have truths, we only have choices. Our perception of reality is real to us, but it doesn’t mean its real to anyone else or even the truth about ourselves. Just because you think God told you to bomb abortion clinics, doesn’t mean that’s what God really wants. The truth is you’re delusional. Just because you say “I love you” to someone doesn’t mean you’re actually looking for them to say “I love you” back. The truth is, you are insecure. Therefore, even when the intention is clear behind a persons actions (or words), there is a greater truth that is more indicative of reality. Whatever that is.