Part 1: In Praise of Rudeness and Unity

“Unity does not mean sameness. It means oneness of purpose.”

–Priscilla Shirer

Photo by Evan Kirby on Unsplash

I’ve been thinking about this quote for a couple of weeks now. It’s especially relevant for these times, when social and political tensions are so high around division and unity.

We’ve understood the strength inherent in unity for a long time, but what exactly is unity? Oxford Online Dictionary defines it as “the state of being united or joined as a whole.” Note ‘sameness’ is not part of the definition.

Division and disconnection, however, are excellent ways to disempower individuals or groups of people. Authoritarians know this and take advantage of successful strategies and tools to achieve social chaos, violence, and play on our innate paranoia and tendency to distrust and blame others. Controlling media and communication as well as the flow of information (facts), stamping out free speech and critical thinking, invalidating science and data, weakening education, and allowing ideologues, fanatics, and seriously disordered people to gain and maintain positions of power are direct frontal attacks on unity.

We can see how highly effective such strategies are. Slowly, we’ve drifted into the belief that unity is sameness. Black and white can’t work together. Men and women are enemies. Republicans and Democrats, left and right, vaxers and anti-vaxers, must all maintain oppositional positions.

But unity does not mean sameness.

Neither can unity be forced. Some time ago I wrote about Gaven de Becker’s book, The Gift of Fear. As far as I’m concerned, this should be required reading for every woman in the world. One of the concepts de Becker has coined is that of “forced teaming.”

Forced teaming is an intentional, directed manipulation projecting shared purpose or experience where none exists. It’s an effort to force premature trust and false intimacy. The example de Becker uses involves a strange man approaching a woman juggling bags of groceries and offering to help. Ignoring the response of “No, thank you,” the man speaks in an insistent, friendly, pleasant way of “we.” “We neighbors need to help one another out.” The woman, polite and not wanting to be unpleasant to this nice man, acquiesces. She unlocks her door and lets the man in with a couple of bags of her groceries.

Photo by Peter Forster on Unsplash

Forced teaming is extremely hard to deal with because it’s subtle, and rejecting it feels rude.

Rude.

I tripped over that word and fell flat on my face. My inability and complete unwillingness to ever be rude has handcuffed me my whole life. It’s opened me up to abuse and trauma, silenced me, and fueled my self-hatred and self-harm.

All because I didn’t want to be rude.

I never consider whether someone is being rude to me. All I have room for is the desire to avoid behaving in such a way at all costs.

Ladies, when a strange man approaches us in a vulnerable situation, it’s rude. And dangerous. He may mean well. He may not. We can’t tell and we’re fools if we trust a strange man when we’re in an unsafe situation. I don’t care how well he’s disguised as Prince Charming or how solicitous and warm and friendly he is. Forced teaming does not occur in a situation of coincidence. It’s deliberate and directed at manipulating us. Are we unable to push past the taboo of rudeness and say, “I didn’t ask for your help and I don’t want it”? Would we rather put ourselves at real risk for violence? Is the social mandate against rudeness, especially for women, that strong?

It’s not, when I lay it out like this, on the screen, in words. Of course I can see how foolish it is to put manners ahead of my own health and safety. But in the moment, I’d be a woman who didn’t notice my “No, thank you,” was ignored. I wouldn’t want to make a fuss or a scene. I wouldn’t want to hurt the nice guy’s feelings. I wouldn’t want to be a bitch.

I wouldn’t want to be rude.

Oxford Online Dictionary defines rude as “offensively impolite or ill-mannered; startlingly abrupt.”

Notice the subjectivity of that definition. Many people currently appear to believe disagreement is rude. Biological fact is rude. The truth is rude. Boundaries are rude. Questions are rude. Discussion and debate are rude. Speaking up in self-defense is rude. Saying no is rude.

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Rudeness is tricky. We all have a private list of rude behaviors that make us cringe. It’s important to note the list varies from person to person. I’ve known people who were brought up to consider sneezing out loud rude. They go through all kinds of contortions to avoid it, emitting a variety of hilarious sounds. It always makes me smile when I run into this. I wasn’t raised with a prohibition against sneezing, so to my way of thinking it’s not rude if the sneeze is covered or contained and a murmured “excuse me” follows it.

Rudeness is so often in the eye of the beholder.

Of course, those who try to control us with forced teaming and other manipulative techniques will be loud about how rude we are when we refuse to accept those tactics. We’re likely to be publicly shamed and called hateful names.

But we’re less likely to get dragged into a car, raped, or murdered.

It boils down to the old problem of saying no. If we decide saying no is rude, the only polite way to live is to have no power and no boundaries. Who would benefit from a such a compliant and disempowered population?

I like the idea of oneness of purpose. It’s a container for strength, cooperation, and integrity. However, this, too, is a minefield because, to put it rudely, people lie about their purpose and agenda. Forced teaming comes into play. A small group with intentions to grab power approaches a larger, well-established and organized group working for empowerment and support of a marginalized population and says we’re with you! We want the same thing! Look how alike we are! You have to include us!

Individuals and groups who have been marginalized are particularly loath to repel this kind of invasion because they believe in kindness, tolerance, and an equal playing field, and they know from their own experience how painful and unjust systemic discrimination and bigotry are. They are successfully infiltrated, manipulated, and weakened from the inside by the smaller group, who never had any intention of working and playing well with others and only wanted to co-opt the established group’s presence, position, and power for their own ends.

To achieve oneness of purpose, we would have to agree on priorities, have equal access to information (facts) and resources, create strategies and systems to improve our situation, tell the truth, and consent to work with people different from us in a variety of ways.

It sounds lovely. It also sounds like fantasy in our current social context.

Never in my lifetime has unity felt so out of reach.

Never in my lifetime has unity appeared so necessary.

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Facts, Fear, and Footnotes

This tidbit landed in my Inbox this week. At first read, I simply agreed with it. As I’ve thought about it, though, I keep unpacking layers.

I’m sitting outside in the sun at our new house writing the old-fashioned way with a pen and paper on my knee, which is crusted with dirt. The knee, I mean, not the pen and paper! It’s too bright for my laptop out here. Inside, our plumber and his assistant are deconstructing our upstairs bathroom. Fortunately, we still have a dumpster. We are pleased to have our plumbing issues addressed: slow drains, old water damage, leaking pipes, and an unpleasant whiff of sewer now and then. We will be even more pleased to have a working shower.

Photo by Angelina Litvin on Unsplash

And it all costs money. A lot of money.

With no work as a distraction on this day off, I spent the morning in the garden, where I was thoroughly happy and busy. That took care of the morning. I got dirty (knees) and bug bitten. We have no water at the moment, so I’m going to stay dirty until the plumbers leave for the day, although, come to think of it, I don’t know the water will be turned back on when they leave. Hmm.

Anyway.

Near noon I went inside for shade and a cold drink, but the sounds of banging, sawing, and the shop vac, along with a steady stream of construction debris and old bathroom fittings being carried down the stairs and out the door on the way to the dumpster fueled my anxiety, so I turned to the comfort of writing, as I so often do. I started by catching up on my email, where inspiration frequently lurks.

It was then I read Godin’s brief thoughts about fear and footnotes. He suggests when we feel nervous and afraid about the “information” we’re writing or speaking about, we don’t show our sources, references, and work.

It made me think about my own fear about scarcity today. If I showed my work about that, about the fear I’ll run out of money and have to spend the rest of my life under a bridge, what would it look like?

Have I ever lived under a bridge?

No.

Have I ever been in serious want?

No.

Have I ever been homeless or truly hungry?

No.

Do I have a job I love and for which I’m paid?

Yes.

In essence, I have no work to show because my fear of scarcity is nothing but an old ghost, an ancient traumatic wound, irrational and mostly in my head.

Photo by Mar Newhall on Unsplash

Interesting. Does lack of research and background information indicate a measure of fear in our discourse, a measure of uncertainty, a degree of irrationality, even?

Perhaps.

It’s a fact that I like my information (facts) served up with links, references, and footnotes. Content presented as information (facts) without such foundations is suspect in my eyes, and I do further research. Far too many people in cyberspace call their opinions, pathologies, disorders, fetishes, and lies facts.

On the other hand, some information (facts) is so widely accepted, taught, and promulgated footnotes are hardly necessary. An example of this is diet. Much of our (broken) healthcare system is built on the foundation of “facts” about what constitutes a healthy and appropriate diet.

But what if these “facts” arise from corrupted data? What if the real truth is less profitable for those in power and thus has been buried? For decades?

Collecting data and testing hypotheses requires funding. Doing it well requires a lot of funding. Corporations and other entities with deep pockets may have a vested interest in the outcome of studies. It’s not impossible to imagine unpalatable findings (by which I mean findings which threaten profit) are buried or deleted. It’s also not hard to imagine studies designed to explore data contradicting the (profitable) status quo can find neither funding nor support in the most powerful scientific schools and journals.

An unhealthy population is enormously profitable for some people, and those people have a lot of power.

This sort of thing has, after all, been going on since the time of Galileo, the sixteenth century astronomer who was interviewed by the Inquisition, forced to recant his scientific findings, and spent the end of his life under house arrest.

The thing is, he was a scientific genius, and he was right.

But the Catholic Church, very powerful during that period of history, felt threatened by his conclusions.

In other words, they were afraid. So they shut him up. Fear = silencing.

But that doesn’t change the fact that he was right.

Photo by Brenda Godinez on Unsplash

Tens of thousands of articles are available online about the health benefits of a plant-based diet. The better written, more thorough ones contain resources and links to various studies and data. However, one can also find studies and data by well-qualified scientists and doctors (mostly in other countries) indicating the reverse: a plant-based diet may cause a myriad of health problems.

Critical thinking, the ability to assess a problem or question, research, look at data, ask questions, and analyze findings, is an equal opportunity playing field unless we have no access to information (like the Internet) or are unable to read and write. What this means to me is we all have a right to question information, research for ourselves, and look for a variety of sources and references. Critical thinking in the modern age means we must be able to separate a fact from an opinion, information (facts) from lies.

That’s a big problem. I’m quite confident a plant-based diet caused me years of health problems and pain and the biochemical results (demonstrable data) my current carnivore diet provides to my doctor are not dangerous or problematic. My healthcare provider disagrees. Vehemently. I want to talk about my research, resources, and links. I want to ask questions. I want resources my provider might have access to which I haven’t found or don’t know about. I believe I have some solid data to back up my questions and concerns. I also know I am frequently wrong, and I’m as susceptible as anyone else to the glamour of bullshit wrapped up in science.

My healthcare provider refuses to discuss it.

So there we are. I’m not afraid to be wrong, but I am afraid to be in pain. My healthcare provider is part of a broken system. How much power does she have, really, to deal with someone like me? How much time does she have? How much energy or even interest? It’s much easier to fill out a one-size-fits-all prescription for a plant-based diet or pharmaceuticals. Her job may be in jeopardy if she doesn’t feed me with the medical establishment’s current party line.

Meanwhile, in the eyes of some others, I’m murdering the planet, taking poor care of my health, and clearly believe in hate and violence toward animals. Any self-respecting member of PETA would set my house on fire.

Photo by Lukas Budimaier on Unsplash

None of that is true, from my perspective. None of it is even fact. I could provide several links and resources challenging those statements, many of them by scientists and including studies and data. But many, many, people would believe all those things and more about me based on my dietary choices, and they too could provide links, resources, and numerous studies and scientific conclusions supporting their point of view.

I agree with Godin. We should show our work. It won’t make everything magically clear because information from different sources frequently conflicts, and not all information sources are trustworthy, but showing our work helps us remember science is built on the shoulders of those who came before us (like Galileo), and honors the scientific process. Heck, it honors creative process. Godin’s original post is three lines. I just wrote more than 1,000 words because he poked at me and made me think, explore, question, wonder.

We are all connected, whether we like it or not. Showing our work makes us a little more human, a little more humane, a little more thoughtful, a little more careful. People who won’t show their work set off my radar. What are they hiding? Why don’t they have the courage of their convictions? Why are questions and investigations so threatening they must be silenced or stopped?

As for the inside of my own head, I need to show my work to myself, too. Anxiety thrives on the stories we tell ourselves without regard to whether the stories are true or have ever been true. We all need to be clear about the difference between our stories and opinions and information (facts). Stories and opinions have their place, but they’re not facts we can research, footnote, and independently verify. If we can’t show our work, perhaps we’re no longer in the realm of facts. If we won’t show our work, we lose credibility with people who think critically.

Updating a bathroom costs some money. We have some money. Those are the facts.

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Censorship

Now that I publish my fiction on Substack, I read regular content from the platform, and a few weeks ago the platform runners wrote an essay about censorship titled “Society has a trust problem. More censorship will only make it worse.”

I’ve read and reread that essay.

I’ve been trained as a librarian, and one of the most important tenets of professional librarians is freedom of information. One of the things that drove me out of my job as an elementary school librarian in a public school system was pressure to take Harry Potter off the shelves. I told the school board I wouldn’t do it. If they had to fire me, so be it, but I wouldn’t take the books off the shelves. I asked if any school board member had actually read one of the books in question. None had. Surprise, surprise.

Photo by John Salvino on Unsplash

Freedom of speech and freedom in general have been hot topics since the 2016 presidential election and COVID. I’ve written before about freedom of speech, which is not all-inclusive.

In the last six years, cultural censorship has increased enormously, but it’s failed to silence anti-vaxxers, proponents of the election Big Lie, COVID naysayers, and people who believe men cannot become women, or vice versa. It’s also failed to address increasing civil violence, disconnection, and unrest.

Does censorship work? Is it a useful tool?

It doesn’t appear so. I’m irresistibly reminded of the “Just Say No” drug campaign for school kids and sexual abstinence programs for teens. Do they work?

Not so much.

It seems to be a human character trait that the minute we’re forbidden to do something we move heaven and earth to do it. Look at Adam and Eve. Look at Pandora. Dozens of old oral stories from around the world are about people who broke their promise not to look and suffered the consequences.

I’ve never thought to ask myself what problem we’re trying to address with censorship.

Is it cultural trust?

Possibly. Trust is an easily manipulated quality, because it’s a belief. Belief, as we’ve seen demonstrated over and over during the last years, is more powerful than facts. People will die for their beliefs. They’ll kill for them.

Are beliefs strengthened or weakened by access to all kinds of information (facts) or opinions? Are beliefs strengthened or weakened by censorship?

Photo by Cristian Newman on Unsplash

I’m not sure trust is the root problem, though, or not the entire root. Perhaps the deepest root is education and, paradoxically, freedom. Authoritarianism is characterized by blind submission to authority. One of the tools of authoritarianism is censorship, including limiting the rights to vote, read, write, report the facts, speak, and teach.

Censorship implies people can’t be trusted with a full range of information. They are unable to make the “right” choices, according to the authoritarian(s) at the top. Thus, the public is spoon-fed only that which supports the authoritarian power. Asking questions is not allowed. Challenge is not allowed. Discussion and debate are not allowed.

Don’t you worry your little head about substance abuse. Just say no. We don’t talk about sex and our bodies in this house. It’s dirty and shameful. Just abstain from inhabiting your healthy young body.

The subject of censorship is tricky, because I suspect we’d all like to have the power to censor certain voices on social media, on radio, on television, in the bookstores, on YouTube, and on platforms like Substack. Some of the propaganda and opinions out there, the lies masquerading as facts, are horrifying. However, my lie might be your fact. Your heart-felt ideology about eating meat may be in direct conflict with what I need to sustain my health and quality of life. Should one of us have the power to censor the other?

This is where the trust problem comes in. We don’t trust one another to make the “right” choices or believe the “right” people. I think many don’t trust themselves to make the “right” choices. They rely on someone they have faith in to tell them what to do.

The “right” choices imply the possibility of “wrong” choices, but this is black-and-white, overly simplistic thinking. Perhaps you need to be a vegetarian in order to sustain your health. Perhaps I need to be a carnivore. We’re both right. Does that mean a full range of diet and nutrition information should be available to all? Can we, as a culture, agree to live and let live?

I have my doubts.

The current specific issue on Substack is the subject of COVID. Evidently, there are writers on the platform spreading dis- and/or misinformation about COVID. Scientists on Substack sending meticulously researched, linked, and data-driven information take issue with that and want Substack to censor such writers for the sake of the public good.

Substack, in response, wrote the above essay, maintaining their position against censorship and explaining their thoughts about it.

I’m in sympathy with both sides. I, too, am frustrated with the sheer volume of unmitigated bullshit out there. But I never forget many people would say my sources of information are bullshit, and I would fight hard to maintain access to those sources.

Maybe the problem is not how deep the bullshit is, but how bad we are at recognizing it. And that’s a product of our broken education system and our inability to think critically. Both these cultural trends make us increasingly vulnerable to authoritarianism.

As I’ve discussed before, choice goes hand-in-hand with responsibility. If we want optimum freedom to choose, we must accept the consequences of our choices.

Taking responsibility for our choices is not humanity’s greatest strength at this moment in history.

If I was Supreme Ruler of the World (God forbid), I believe I would vote with Substack on this issue of censorship. Silencing people does not address the root of the problem, only a symptom. We need to figure out a way to fix our educational system so we all learn critical thinking at every stage of education. Not only does this empower people to make their own choices and recognize the difference between lies and truth, opinions and information, it allows public access to a full range of viewpoints.

We are never going to silence the liars and manipulators. They will continue to try to obtain power and money, and they will continue to aggressively work to silence those who disagree with them. The best weapon against them is to firmly empower ourselves and others with education and the ability to think critically. We don’t need to be protected. We need to be armed.

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Skeptical Again

I’m doing it again. Dissenting. Doubting. Questioning the status quo. Looking for new or buried information.

Thinking critically, in other words.

I know unthinking conformity is convenient, but I’ve always been an inconvenient sort of person.

It’s lonely.

This time it’s about diet, and fat, and cholesterol.

I’ve written several posts on this subject before. Here’s the first one.

Photo by Lukas Budimaier on Unsplash

I know it’s all wrong to eat meat and animal fat and stay away from plant-based food of any kind, but it solved my health problems.

I’ve had a lot of bad experience with doctors. For much of my life, I’ve been completely intimidated by doctors or anyone else in authority, especially men. I’m not afraid of blood draws and exams, but unable to speak up for myself, ask questions, or dare to Fail To Please in any way. Which means in and out of the office as fast as possible, making no fuss, not speaking except to answer questions succinctly, never disagreeing, and thanking the doctor extravagantly for their time and trouble, even if (especially if) I felt completely unseen, unheard and unsupported.

(Oh, and desperately minimizing any problems I do have so as not to be a whiner or come across as drug- or attention-seeking. Because it’s bad to need help.)

In short, fawning from the beginning of the appointment to the end.

This experience has meant I avoid health care, aside from well-woman exams and an occasional emergency visit for antibiotics or an injury.

When I have been to the doctor for things like chronic pain, insomnia, depression, and anxiety, I’ve been offered medication rather than information. I don’t want to take long-term medication. I want someone to help me understand what the underlying problem is, not slap a band-aid on it. That means I want to exchange information, which takes time, and ask questions. I want to be given resources and options.

Here in Maine I’ve found a health care provider I like and respect. She’s intelligent, personable, and doesn’t make me feel as though I’m nothing but a nuisance. With her help, I’ve caught up on all appropriate scans, screens, and tests. It’s nice to feel empowered to take care of my own health.

However, part of screenings and tests for women my age have to do with identifying risks for cardiovascular disease, and according to current standards of care I am at risk, solely because of my diet and cholesterol panel.

Current guidelines and standards are built on the longstanding lipid hypothesis, which states diets high in animal fats lead to atherosclerosis, which leads to heart disease. Other, equally longstanding evidence-based data from around the world over a span of decades suggests the opposite, not only that cholesterol is not an indicator of heart disease, but it’s actually protective against it, especially for women. Many doctors, Ph.Ds, and biochemists believe the lipid hypothesis is false and based on a severely flawed original study, which means all the current guidelines (diet and nutrition recommendations and pharmacology to reduce cholesterol) and standards of care built upon it are ineffective, at best. This is validated by staggering and rising rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and other health problems in the American public since the lipid hypothesis began to change diet and nutrition guidelines, food production, and medical care in the 1950s.

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However, the lipid hypothesis is enormously lucrative for Big Ag, Big Pharma, and food producers, and those entities have frightening wealth and political power, more than enough to successfully stifle any funding for unbiased studies, silence independent scientists researching diet, fat, and cholesterol, and corrupt or bury any data that does not support the lipid hypothesis.

I am not getting my information from Facebook or conspiracy theories. I’ve spent years researching and reading, both in books and online, about diet, fat, and cholesterol. I don’t take the position that current cardiovascular guidelines are wrong, but neither am I convinced they’re right. I don’t know, and I know I don’t know, but the evidence tells me there’s plenty of room for doubt. My experience tells me a high-fat, low-to-no-carb diet is the key to my own health.

I want to have a discussion about it with my healthcare provider. I want to talk about studies. I want to ask questions. I want to be allowed to have doubts and concerns. I want to weigh my overall excellent health and function against numbers that may or may not have much to do with heart disease. I want to share links and be given suggestions for research.

I want to consider the possibility that current standards of care are based on a hypothesis that is incorrect.

I scheduled a phone call to discuss some of my test results. My provider expressed her concern about one particular result and thanked me for an email I had sent her, containing several links and information sources I find useful and interesting.

She was polite. I was polite. But our previously warm and friendly connection had vanished. I don’t believe she read anything I sent. I asked a couple of questions about studies and different ways to assess cholesterol panel results, but she dismissed it all. Flat. Businesslike. Professional.

It was a disappointingly brief conversation. I was clear about what I would and would not do. We came up with a plan. We hung up.

I spent the rest of the day feeling like an extremely anxious, difficult, bad child, waiting for catastrophe because I Failed To Please.

Photo by Ashkan Forouzani on Unsplash

All healthcare workers are under the gun these days. I work in a hospital myself, and come in for my share of politically-motivated bullshit regarding COVID. Healthcare providers are understandably exhausted, burned out, and defensive. I’m probably just one more patient influenced by some crazy ideology on the web, as far as my provider is concerned. She has a standard of care to adhere to that’s clean, clear, and congruent with the organization’s policies and procedures, which are congruent with the American Heart Association and all the other powerful medical organizations’ guidelines. She doesn’t have the time or energy to debate with patients about vaccines, dietary fat and cholesterol, or anything else.

But what if current cardiovascular preventive care is based on bad data? What if the truth has been buried under politics and capitalism for decades? What if I feel in the best health of my life because I am in the best health of my life, and nothing’s wrong, nothing needs fixing?

I don’t want to suffer from heart disease, cancer, or other health problems any more than anyone else does. I value my good health and work hard to eat right and stay fit. I want to learn about my own metabolism and physiology. I don’t want pharmacological fixes for issues that might not even be real problems.

I feel sad and frustrated and very alone. I’m feel as though I’m being punished for being a sceptic, and researching and thinking for myself. I’m back in the familiar pattern of asking questions and having people shut down, or withdraw and withhold.

I suppose at the end of the day we all wind up with ourselves and the best choices we can make with the information and resources we have. I know what the right thing is to do for myself at this point. I might get new information. Things might change. I might make a mistake, or be wrong, and suffer consequences. I’m prepared for all that. Things change. I can change with them.

This time I’m not blaming myself for the way I feel. This time I’m seriously considering the possibility that I’m not broken, but our healthcare system is. I’ll continue to take responsibility for my own health and well-being. I’ll continue to read and research as new data and studies become available for review. I’ll continue to doubt, dissent, question, and seek information.

I cannot blindly follow an organization, a system, or a set of expectations and rules from anyone. Data can be and is misinterpreted. It can be frankly corrupted by politics and capitalism. Much of what I’ve learned in my life I’ve had to unlearn and replace with something more effective. I’ve never been able to understand why we are so resistant to being wrong. How can we ever learn if we can’t be wrong? How can we ever go forward and build on our experience and observations? How can we ever hope to improve anything?

So here I am, skeptical again, and paying the price for it. But I’m going to stay on my side and continue to support my healthcare choices, even if I can’t find professional support. I’m not going to fawn, or let my fear chose for me, or apologize for who I am. I’m going to exercise my power to say yes and no, think critically, and advocate for myself, regardless of the expectations of others.

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Terra Incognita

My partner and I have been watching back episodes of Nova for several weeks now on PBS. Last evening, as we watched “What’s Living In You?” and “Can We Make Life?” I realized that part of why I like the show so much is that it’s filled with people from all over the world who know they don’t know … and they want to know.

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This is a direct contrast to some interactions I had this week with people who know … everything. They know what happened; they know everyone’s motivations and secrets; they know exactly what everyone else should think, do and say. They have no interest in anyone else’s point of view or experience. They ask no questions seeking understanding or more information. They don’t have to. They already know, and any information that doesn’t fit their story is an attack, a lie, or a threat.

In these posts I’ve referenced Kathryn Schultz’s book, Being Wrong, a fascinating and funny look at the myriad ways in which we’re all wrong, every day, though some folks seem to feel their lives depend upon winning and being right. Even when forced to admit we’ve been wrong about something, we avoid thinking or talking about it, concentrating instead on all the ways we were, are, and will be right!

We live in a world in which knowing is highly valued. Uncertainty or even, God forbid, admitting or contemplating the vast cosmos of what we don’t know, is seen by some as weakness. I suspect, however, that what’s really going on is simply fear. It makes us uncomfortable to think about how much we don’t know. If we discover things, we might have to make different choices, and most of us don’t want to do that. It’s too much work.

Photo by Jonathan Simcoe on Unsplash

Fear doesn’t empower me, and neither does being right or wrong, or knowing or not knowing, Power is in the inquiry, in the questions, in the curiosity about ourselves, each other and our world. Power is in our ability to learn, unlearn and relearn — also called resilience — as we navigate our lives. We’re all both right and wrong, ignorant and knowledgeable, whether we admit it or not, but not everyone can ask a good question. Not everyone is able to propose an hypothesis and see it through to becoming a theory.

One of my greatest frustrations in life is with people who don’t want to know. What is that? How can anyone choose to be willfully ignorant? I don’t mean we all need to be interested in everything, as though life is one unending mechanistic reductionist set of classes. I mean we all need to be interested … period. In ourselves and the quality of our lives and experience. In others and the qualities of their lives and experiences. In our home, Planet Earth, and how to take care of it. In problem solving and innovation. In relationships and connection. In choices and consequences. In patterns, history and creativity.

Photo by Bryan Minear on Unsplash

The old map-makers drew maps of the discovered world, labeling the undiscovered areas “Terra incognita” or “Here be dragons.” What is the difference between someone who stays strictly within the confines of what the majority accepts as known and those of us who poke and pry; open forbidden doors, jars and boxes; look through microscopes and telescopes; and sail, ride, walk, stumble or crawl in search of dragons?

It boggles my mind to imagine some people find safety in not knowing, in not understanding. How can we make effective choices if we’re missing information? How can we heal, or learn to do better? How can we break dysfunctional patterns in our behavior? How can we have healthy, authentic relationships with ourselves or anyone else?

The hardest part of this issue for me is how disconnected I feel from people who say they don’t want to know. I think of life as an adventure, and I want playmates. I want to share what I’ve learned and learn more. I want to live the questions. I want to explore, reframe, turn beliefs and ideas inside out and upside down. I want to master new tools and skills. I feel sad when people in my life can’t — or won’t — play with me. It’s hard to feel my curiosity and questions are threatening to others. It silences me, and when I have to be silent, or less than I am, I’m bored.

Photo by frank mckenna on Unsplash

The older I get, the less I realize I know. The older I get, the more willing I am to be wrong. The older I get, the more comfortable and confident I am with my ability to research, read, synthesize, understand, experiment, challenge and learn. I notice how angry that makes some people, and how intolerant some folks are of questions, especially uncomfortable questions.

Terra incognita. What a wonderful phrase. Anything could be there, anything at all. I’ll send you a postcard with a footprint of a dragon.