Belief

This post is my entry for December’s IndieWeb Carnival being hosted by Zinzy.

One of Zinzy’s suggested prompts for this month’s theme was:

What is something you can’t know, but that you believe?

I think this is a fascinating way of framing it, because so much of the structures that frame belief exist in a religious context. Many of those transpose knowing with belief to the point that it is foundational that if you say you believe, you automatically have a basis in knowledge or knowing. I think that’s one of the fundamental things that has turned me off to religion over my lifetime, but I’ve never lost my belief in spiritual divinity.

The sciences are rooted in things that are known, or seeking to be known. To balance those concrete yet always evolving through discovery facts and constants, there is belief in those things that are not yet proven or still yet to be fully understood or appreciated. An example for framing purposes would be, there is no physical artifact in our human body that is our soul, yet there is a commonly held belief that something exists within us that makes us more than merely the sum of our parts. Our bones, our organs, and tissue are physical and scientific in what they perform. Our spirit or soul is that which cannot be extracted or donated to science when our human body inevitably and ultimately fails the test of immortality. Yet that spirit transcends the physical form and becomes unbound from the containment that was once so precious.

I believe that our spirit, or soul if you prefer that term, is the energy that we feel but cannot measure through tools or telemetry. It is that which we do not know, but feel. Some people are more in touch with these energy forms because they exist all around us. My wife and I often say to each other, “The world is always telling you things, so long as you’re willing to and actually listen.” Whether it is a physical reminder like touching a tree or seeing lightning do things that can’t be explained, or sitting in traffic and suddenly seeing a message in the form of a license plate that could only have been intended for you if only because you had to be there at that moment to receive it.

Many religions or belief constructs (philosophies) have these concepts embedded throughout. I read things not because I’m seeking to believe in them, such as various ideals from different religions. I read them because I see them as perspectives which to better understand the greater energy that cannot be defined. An analogy that may feel completely out of context would be crime investigation. All witnesses and connections to those witnesses are interviewed and evaluated. Each of those represents a perspective, where the events transpired to all of them, but not everyone experienced it the same way or with the same interpretation of what was occurring. A good detective assumes nothing, but listens to every input to assess and sort out what it means to the understanding being sought.

I have a saying that is framed in my home office that isn’t there for aesthetic or aspirational purposes. It’s there because it is my approach to life and it feels fitting to mention it here in closing. It reads:

Have a mind that is open to anything and attached to nothing.

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