Two and a half months ago I sat in this spot with God knows what ahead of me. In about twelve hours I start my long journey home. I say long, long in terms of modern aviation, but not actually long. And so I come to reflect, as one does, on all that I've done, those I've met and every piece of fleeting imagination I keep alive in memory. I feel I've reached conclusions about myself, my opinions and perceptions of things have certainly evolved since I've bee out here. I find myself thinking I've gotta be careful when I get back; make sure I don't slip back into old habits that had been broken. But then I catch myself. Senseless worrying about that, senseless thinking like that; as long as I'm aware of myself then things should just be left to play out.
By the time you read this I'll be home and I may well have already seen and caught up with you, whoever you maybe, so what else is there left to say?
I guess it's common place for people in my situation to call these trips life changing, travelling, constantly seeing new things, meeting new people. The core of it I imagine is being away from home, family out on your own more then ever before. I think for a lot of people, and I don't discount myself from this, that certainly constitutes the label of life changing, however melodramatic that may sound. Lets be real; everything we do is life changing. Every action, word, thought, is life changing. If I hadn't chosen to sit here and write this I may have gone for a walk, been hit by and been hit by a car. Or I may have eaten a strawberry, got red on the white shirt I'm wearing and subsequently devote twenty minutes to cleaning it off, twenty minutes that could have been spent writing, could been spent in thought, could have lead to some deep revelation which would go on to change my life. So in a sense the whole life changing thing, kind of a moot point.
Now there's one stream of thought that occurred to me early on out here and has been mentioned by me fairly persistently throughout these ramblings. The idea of my own ignorance and the need to realise how stupid I actually am. I've talked about this a lot, or at least it feels like I have, so I won't discuss the idea itself here. I have tried to constantly bear this line of thought in mind when entering discussions and conversations out here. When I feel I've successfully kept it in mind I've become open and perceptive to those I'm talking to and feel I've truly advance my knowledge after discussion as a result.
The real test for this attitude of opennes, come with every discussion I had with a wonderful friend of mine. A guy I spent around seven to ten days with in San Francisco, not in that way, someone who was really the perfect conversational partner for me. He was of a similar political persuasion and was always willing to enter into debate about a subject. I truly feel that one the greatest things I got out here were the conversations we had. So we would debate and he would never fail to shoot me down if he disagreed with me, which at first kind of shocked me. It would always lead to brilliant exchanges of information and various perspectives. One time we entered debate on a particular subject and I got extremely riled up as it was something I have rarely been truly challenged on and was thus fairly well convinced of. I got almost angry from the fact he was stumping me with his arguments but after about ten minutes I forced myself to relax, breathe and be fully open to the arguments he was presenting. Looking back on that subject now, I'm not as convinced as I once was but beyond that I've gained an entirely new perspective, something of truly great value.
This guy was four of five years my senior, a fact he was surprised to learn, but speaking with him, someone who is so well read and knowledgeable yet still very humble in his opinions was incredibly humbling for me. Being able to share the time we did together and the conversations we had, conversations where you really felt your ideas and perceptions changing and evolving as you learn from each other was truly phenomenal. From on perspective it's almost like having that idea at the beginning of the trip, I slowly implemented it throughout my travels and dealings with people until it culminated in being able to have these amazing invaluable conversations.
One last point I wanted to make on the whole knowledge/debating issue is about sitting on the fence. Now of course they will be an inherent bias, me being the annoying opinionated fucker that I am, but hey.
So in light of this concept of being aware of ignorance how can we ever pick a side if we don't feel we know all we can about the subject or indeed will every know all we can. I think as human beings who are endowed with logic and rationality it is our duty to use these abilities in search of truth. (Worth noting that this theory doesn't stand if you believe human beings are fundamentally irrational.) In doing this we take all the knowledge we have and make a judgement based upon it. The key to this exercise being valid is having an openness and a willing to admit when we're wrong and thereby being constantly able to reassess and re - examine our judgement in the presence of new information and perspectives. It is this openness that is the hardest part as we are made to feel that being wrong is a bad thing. When in face being wrong, really is marvelous as it allows us to be more knowledgeable and closer to truth then we ever before. (It's also worth noting that this theory also relies on truth being a priority, which I do believe we naturally allude to.) It's not about whats right, it's about what's true. Oh and of course I'm aware of the potential impossibility of the notion of truth. Yet I think in spite of this being the case I think aiming for it and striving towards it is still the only way to go.
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