They say when you assume you make an ass out of you and me.
Well that’s for sure. But we still do it all the time.
We get tiny parcels of information about things and then immediately fill in the blank based on our own stories. We jump to conclusions created out of our own limited understanding of the world. We project things based on our own fears.
It’s sort of like an iceberg. We only see 1/3 of something visibly. The largest part ”“ 2/3’s ”“ is hidden from us.
When we make assumptions about things we can get ourselves into all kinds of trouble. We react. We judge. At extreme levels, we marginalize people. Separate them. Make them different from us. Feel better about ourselves by making someone else feel less than.
I understand why we do it. We don’t like to feel out of control. Making up a story that fits a narrative we’re comfortable telling ”“ because maybe we’ve been telling it for many, many years ”“ allows us to make meaning out of something that disrupts our narratives.
But generally the meaning we make is false.
Things take time to unfold. Human beings are impatient and demand that the answers for things be delivered immediately to them. It’s sort of narcissistic when you think about it. Who says we have to have the answers to all things now? Why is it we can’t live in the unknown more? Why do we feel safer when we can categorize things in ways that allow us to be in control?
Part of why we are here is to live in the mystery of it all. Constantly trying to define the mystery doesn’t solve it. It just makes us feel better because we tell ourselves we have the answer to something that is ”“ in essence ”“ unanswerable.
Seeking doesn’t mean defining. It means searching for that which wants to be found. And the searching has been going on for millennia. If it had already been found, our journeys here would have ended long ago.