It’s hard to live in tension between what we ‘know’ and the unknown

By David McElroy · April 8, 2018

When I was a child, I expected the world to make sense. Because I believed that, I saw reason. I saw patterns. I saw order.

The longer I live, the more those patterns look like chaos and randomness to me. Over the course of my adult life, I’ve had to throw away so many things I was taught as objective truth. The more of my certainty I’ve had to give up, the more fragile and scary life feels.

The uncertainty makes me feel disoriented. The feeling makes me long for the solidity of my previous certainty — but I can’t close my eyes to the chaos, because it appears to be the truth.

Why do people believe absurd things? Why do some people believe the world is flat? Why do others believe in strange conspiracies? I think it’s because the things people believe make it easier for them to feel certain about something.

If someone believes that the Earth is the center of everything — and that it somehow rests on a firm foundation instead of being a rock hurtling through the vastness of space — that can allow him to feel more secure somehow. He doesn’t reason that out, of course, but something in his gut feels better if he believes that. The world feels more orderly to him. So he ignores evidence to the contrary. He believes what he needs to believe.

If someone believes there is a conspiracy of evil people — whether he thinks it’s evil bankers or big businessman or whoever — this allows himself to feel better about his life. He doesn’t have to take responsibility for what’s wrong with the life he lives. He doesn’t even have to feel as though the world (or his country) is out of control. He can choose to believe there is a lot of control — and he feels more comfortable thinking there is evil control than no control at all.

I was taught that we live in an age of reason. I was taught that our political leaders cared about us and that they made decisions about what would be best for everyone. I was taught that we were entering an era when poverty would be banished and humans would live in peaceful brotherhood.

The reality I face is far different.

I know from experience how crooked the political world is. I know how little connection there is between politicians’ rhetoric and their true motivations. (I used to write their words, remember.) I know that there is brutal poverty all around me. Even though the world is slowly getting richer — and the worst of the poor are better off than they once were — I know that almost none of the people I see every day even acknowledge that poverty exists. I know that people around the world continue to kill each other for the flimsiest of reasons.

I was taught certainty about all sorts of things, including theology. This has caused me serious anguish over the years as I’ve struggled to find the truth between what I had been taught and what I can experience of a Creator I know as God.

When it comes to metaphysical truth, it’s easiest to go one direction or the other — to either claim absolute faith in whatever some man preached from a pulpit or else reject everything but what science can prove. I can’t do either one of those.

I am terrified at the uncertainty I face. As I say “I don’t know” to more and more things in this world — in order to be honest with myself and others — I’m left disoriented. I don’t have many of the foundational “truths” which seemed so firm and so obvious when I was young.

Instead, what I’m left with is a huge gap between what I believe I know and what I know that I don’t know. The easy choice is to live in one of those extremes — what I believe I know or in the conviction that we know nothing except what we can see or touch or measure.

Instead, I live in the gap between those two kind of certainty. It’s a very scary place.

I want certainty to believe in. I still have faith that there is certainty. I have faith that there will be patterns in the randomness. I have faith that objective truth is still out there to be found beyond this life.

In the meantime, I find less and less about this world makes sense. Man’s ability to reason is vastly overestimated — and his tendency toward self-deception is vastly underestimated. I see a world of chaos and it makes me feel very disoriented.

I hate looking at the chaos, because I long for order. I hate admitting my uncertainty, because I desperately need certainty. I hate seeing all the ugliness, because I long for beauty.

But truth is more important than my discomfort. The world is full of chaos. It’s uncertain and seems random. It seems ugly and hateful.

I cling to my spirit’s faith that in the truth I will find patterns and certainty and beauty and love. It’s the only way I can deal with a world which disappoints and disorients me every single day.

My hope is that my faith in my Creator will lead me to truth in the end.

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A state legislator in Maine has been stripped of the ability to speak in the state Legislature — and her votes are not being counted on legislative issues — all because she made a truthful social media post. Rep. Laurel Libby (R-Auburn, Maine) opposes allowing boys to compete against girls’ teams in school athletics and she’s become known for making an issue of it. On Feb. 17, she posted on Facebook about a recent example that she found outrageous. She posted side-by-side photos of a boy named John who competed last year in a state track event and won fifth place against other boys two years ago — and a photo of the same boy (now called Katie) who won first place in the same event this year against girls. Whether you find this outrageous or not, Libby is clearly being honest and truthful about the objective facts of an issue of public importance. But the state Legislature censured her. Democrats decreed that she could not speak in the House and that her votes would not count on legislation — until she apologized for the outrage of telling the truth. She refused and her constituents have been unrepresented in the state House since then. The people who promote this ideology are out of touch with reality and won’t rest until they force the rest of us to join them in this delusion. But even if you agree with “trans” ideology, you should be appalled at this heavy-handed attack on political speech.

The late Steve Jobs was at the center of our culture’s transition from analog to digital. He co-founded Apple Computer. He led the team that revolutionized personal computing with the first Macintosh. As CEO of Apple, he led the development of the iPhone and later the iPad. You would think the children of such a man would be surrounded by technology. But Jobs and his wife Laureen didn’t let their children use iPads. Their home had few screens of any kind. Even though Jobs spent most of his time developing and selling Macs and iPhones and iPads, he was home with his wife and children for dinner when he was in town. The family ate together at a simple wooden table in their kitchen — and there were no digital devices or focus on popular culture. Instead, he’s said to have guided his family toward deep discussions of art, philosophy and education — with no iPads to be found. If the man who guided the development of such products chose a different path for his own children, does that suggest that his digital experience taught him that children need human connection, not screens? And does it suggest the possibility that we might be better off if we made the same choice for our families?

For four years, Donald Trump’s supporters screamed that everything that went wrong was the fault of Joe Biden. They were sometimes right and they were sometimes delusional. (Anybody who knows me understands that I can’t stand Biden any more than I can stand Trump, just for different reasons.) But for two months, Trump has rampaged through U.S. political life — vandalizing pretty much everything in sight — and the vast majority of his supporters are silent at best. Many watch as he blows up the world economy and they make excuses for him. They’re in absolute denial, even about things that Trump is doing very intentionally. Anybody who understands economics and history knows that tariffs are a terrible idea from a pragmatic point of view. Anybody who values individual freedom knows that tariffs are massive taxes on individuals — and they’re a tool of political control over the ability of people to trade freely. Trump is the antithesis of everything which political conservatives stood for just a few years ago. It’s far past time for people who claim to be conservatives to reclaim the principles and values which they used to claim — and stop this mad man before he can accelerate the day when we experience economic and social collapse. Open your eyes to reality and reject this lying narcissist.

On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

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