Winston was beginning to wonder if the state could declare if 2 + 2 = 5"

In the time we are living in it is getting harder and harder to know anything anymore.  In some ways it feels like there are two separate worlds people occupy.  In each world there is that which is true, but it is not the complete truth.  Parsing these half truths and figuring out what is real is becoming a full time job.  

I'm exhausted. 

And yet, I press on.  For me getting to the bottom of things and understanding the whole truth is not just important, but it actually lends cohesiveness and continuity to life.   It ends the cognitive dissonance. 

But how do we know what we know?  How can I be sure that what I know in my bones is not merely an artifact of what I want to see? 

I can look at my hand and drawing on my senses and my direct experience of "handedness" I can definitively say "this is a hand"  THIS IS MY HAND!  Now it is possible that I am having a hallucination and through some fluke of biology my "knowing" is only a collection of neurons firing in my visual cortex such that I see "hand" and think I know "hand" but all things being equal this is mostly how we know what we know.  

Our direct experience is something we have come to know and trust. 

There is also a priori knowledge which is based on logic and reason (such as a mathematical equation) in which the knowing is the proof itself. 2 + 2 = 4.  

And finally we come to consensus reality where the group decides what is real.  For a long time many millions believed the world was flat (that ones making a comeback) and there were dragons at the end of the world.  We can find many examples of this in today's politics. (I hear the words fake and hoax frequently these days)

I find no particular comfort in the a priori and consensus "realities."  I might think differently if I were a mathematician or a physicist, but let's face it Schrodinger's cat was both dead and alive and Eisenberg's electrons can be anywhere at anytime.   

So were does that leave us in terms of how we operate in life?  In terms of ethics, truth, and actions? 

I have no answers, but I do have some queries that might point to a direction: 

• The gut has neurons too; lots of them.  Have you ever known fear?  Did you feel it in your gut?  Maybe the gut can give us a "truth-meter" on what is going on?  
• Could trusting our gut instinct be a direction?  (Quakers have always trusted this when receiving messages as we center down and seek clarity sometimes the physical discomfort to rise up is truth coming through.)
• Might truth be a process?  We think of truth as being this bolt of insight.  A bold epiphany.  What if through a clearness committee or just seeking over time truth emerges slow and in bits n pieces?  

These tools (Quaking (feeling spirit stirring in the body), Centering Down, and Clearness) may be a path to the truth, ethics and actions?   The power of expectant waiting is exactly in the not knowing.  In that liminal space where knowing is suspended new questions arise and new understandings too. 

​Joseph Olejak

"Individuals can denounce and resist a way of life; Only a community can live a way of life into being and then bequeath it to succeeding generations."

 -Jim Corbett, Sanctuary for All Life

The marketplace has sent many ideas to the boneyard. We don't drive around Ford Pintos anymore because they blew up when rear-ended.  Through both legal means (thank you Ralph Nader) and a lack of public acceptance the Pinto is no longer on the road.  

But not all bad ideas make it to the bone yard.  We still have xenophobia and racism alive and well in our politics today with entire political parties defending its right to exist.  We fought a world war over Nazi's thinking they could exterminate an entire class of people just because of religious and ethnic affiliation and now, 70 years later, we have witnessed the resurgence of the Alt Right. 

The question we need to ask ourselves is why? 

Why does the Pinto die and racism and xenophobia survive?  If we start with the preposition that ideas serve a purpose and play an important role in society then we must (whether we like it or not) accept the fact that people are getting some value out of racism and xenophobia.  

Now don't misunderstand ... I am no advocate of these bad ideas ... but to understand this issue and build a more inclusive and equitable society we must provide that same unmet need with a better and more functional idea. The square wheel works, but boy oh boy the round wheel is so much better!! 

So what is our round wheel? 

What can Quakers offer the world that takes the place of tribalism and circling the wagons?  

In this particular question, I think, we Quakers have much to offer.  Some very good round wheels! 

• Community: There may be no better substitute for a bad idea than giving a person a direct experience of community that has them understand viscerally (in the gut) the power of solidarity. A community that revolves not around negative values but positive ones.  That is solidarity in love vs hate. 
• Equality: It is a radical notion that people are equal.  It really makes no sense from an historical perspective. Our lived experience shows us that we are not treated equal in spite of lofty goals of our founding documents.  The cardiologist and the lawyer make $300 an hour, but the guy flipping burgers makes $8.  The billionaires control the levers of power that the rest of us toil under.  How can these two kinds of people be considered equal? Their equality may only be on the basis of the fact that they exist. And by their very existence they have a fundamental right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; an equality before the law and also before God.  To date a goal un-achieved, but something to strive for. 

Taking just these two ideas it is possible to extrapolate how much better life would be for everyone if we brought community and equality further into the realms of human interaction.

Queries about bad ideas:

• Is an idea that I hold dear a source of oppression for others? 
• Does an idea held by society forward the conversation about human development or end it? 
• What is the logical endpoint of an idea, namely does it expand a humane world or contract it? 

Query about good ideas: 

• How can we infuse our daily interactions with equality and community? 
• If an idea works, how can we improve upon it? 

Joseph Olejak