Paradigms

We are all (or atleast most) of us contained within one or more paradigms, one or more ways of thinking. Most of us think we are right, most of us think our way is the best way.

If you work with our hands, you might say "the basics are what is important, nothing else, only what you can see and touch matter and the working man is the ideal!"

If you are an academic you might say "education and concise thinking are important. Only through a highly disciplined and trained mind can we approach the truth!"

If you are an artist you might say "only the unsaid is important, since we cannot say the truth we must not say it, and retain only a sense of it in our minds. We may portray the truth through something else, hold it up as a signpost or symbol. There is truth in the hidden, in the obscure!"

If you are religious you might say "my god is the truth, and no other god, no other religion has the truth. If you join us, you will be saved!"

If you are a businessman you might say "the dollar is the bottom line. The free market will adjust to fill the desires and attitudes of the people, it is a system very close to perfection. Only through investing and spending money can we be integrated in society!"

And so on ... so it is very difficult to be sure that we are correct, that we have any hold on reality at all. If we are honest with ourselves, we realize that much of what we think (if not the entirety of what we think) has been trained. If we change fields, change friends, change countries, the way we think can change dramatically, can flip on its fragile head, can change colours, change textures.

Sometimes I think silence itself ... the pureness of observation ... the pureness of any experience or thought or emotion left to its own is as close as we may come to truth ... but this is still my paradigm, my training. Where is truth ... where is reality?