…or an Epipen…or a pen knife. Doesn’t matter, they came at me and I prevailed.
After the dust-up, I had a moment of clarity. It’s funny what we humans choose to fight over. We’re pretty calm when dealing with someone who doesn’t cotton to objective truth. Dig this, if you say “the sky is blue” and someone says, “no it isn’t” you probably won’t feel inclined to bust them apart…probably.
You (and I) will likely just think, “Well that person’s got a touch of something.” If, however, someone says “God is real” and you say “God isn’t real” then the Epipens and pen knifes start to come out. I wonder why that is?
Maybe when we’re confronted with things that we are certainly certain about (like sky color-and don’t get post-modern on me about the limits and vagaries of language) we feel less inclined to puff up because we recognize the absurdity of quibbling over the obvious. When we start discussing things such as God, or Mercury in Retrograde, or Baba Yaga, or Chaka Khan our notion of the “truth” seems to sit on a very hairy edge with respect to tolerance of those who don’t accept our claims.
So, on a sunny day, when I say “the sun is shining” and you say “the sun is not shining” I don’t feel like popping you in the mouth. When you say, “The Earth is 6,000 years old” and I say “That’s horse shit” we both feel like pounding each other. At least I feel like pounding you. I wonder why that is?
Seems like the more grey the area of “truth,” the less violent we should get over interpretation. Guess that would be pretty boring though. Perhaps when we are, at some level, uncertainly certain about our truth it rattles our nervous system into agitation when someone pushes on the grains of doubt inside of us?
At any rate, think about this and confirm my thoughts. You’ll see it’s true. And if you disagree then balls to you… and you’d better not let me catch you on the street. I’ll give you a horse whippin’…