Wrapped Up Rabbit Holes - The Belief of Believing Me

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
    
Walt Whitman

***

Without a core belief system, it’s no wonder people are adrift.

And with a core belief system, it’s no wonder people are impenetrable.

Which would you rather be? 

Available to the ‘gods’ of today – to be influenced, cajoled and led down rabbit holes that ease the existential emptiness of having no core.

Or do you want to be a ‘god’ of today – to influence, cajole and seek followers down your rabbit holes that give meaning to your existence?

But wait.

That is a binary question. 

By posing it this way – aren’t I already trying to lure you down my rabbit hole? What if there were no sides to take? What if my whole question was actually a third, hidden rabbit hole?

***

“Aren’t we a little too passive in the face of inherited concepts? We allow them to think for us, and to stand as place markers when we can’t be bothered to think.”

Zaddie Smith, English novelist*

***

We inherited the concepts of inhibition, direction, faulty sensory perception and so on from a man brought up in the 19th Century. A man now documented as having a secret mistress and fathering a bastard son - a son who preferred to live on a barge and take no part in his father’s life. He wrote about human savages and reassembled the racist ways of thinking from the 19th Centruy. We conveniently forget this history. 

Is a man who held racist beliefs worth listening to? 

Whether you like the answer or not - if you are in any way involved in Alexander's Discovery - your answer is yes. Today, that kind of behaviour stands out. Celebrities have been cancelled for less.

Times are changing - fast. Just as the old man said. What we can say with assurance - FM thought for himself. He shaped his discoveries from the interactions between observation, deep thought and external validation. 

He got a lot more right than he got wrong. I won’t cancel him.

Don’t listen to the mob, listen to your heart.