I'm taking a cleansing breath. In. [Pause.] Out. [Pause.] Ah. Better.
My mind has been otherwise engaged for the past indeterminate amount of time. Days at least. Possibly weeks. I don't know. I've not been commenting around much, and I'm not sure if that will improve much. I'm taking on new responsibilities at work. In spite of swearing I didn't want to do it, I'm moving, as I always seem to do, from a technical worker position into more of a technical management position.
You know what? It's just occurred to me that this type of trivia about me is completely irrelevant. You don't need to know it, and I already know it. My job's changing. I may not be around as much. Enough said.
Did you read at Brandon's non-blog that there might be a Brandon non-non-blog again soon, which is to say he might start non-guest-posting? I think that's what he said. That's cool. He's a good writer. I look forward to his return to regular contribution.
I was involved in an interesting group discussion about truth and fact the other day. The prevailing view of the group was pretty liberal and relativistic. It's true if it's true to you. A couple of guys in the group, however, were annoyed by this. The conversation went like this:
| More Liberal Person: | If two people report different reports of the same event but believe them, then they are both telling the truth. |
| More Conservative Person: | They may both be telling the truth where honesty is concerned, but only one of them (if even that) is giving a report that is true, which is to say only one of them is reporting something that really happened. |
| MLP: | What really happened doesn't matter. Perception is everything. |
| MCP: | Perception may often prevail, but that is not the same thing as truth. |
| etc... | |
I think objective truth exists, but we cannot approach it. We live inside the tiny black box of our mind. We only see the light that comes into our eyes. We only hear the waves that come into out ears. We only taste and smell and touch those things with which we come into contact. We live in our heads, processing messages, synthesizing them into the perception of a world outside. Sometimes input is filtered or altered before it gets to us. This changes the only reality we know. Actual reality outside my box might be whatever it is, I can only make the best synthesis and judgment possible with the input I receive. If I do this with honesty, I have gotten as close to the truth as I can.
Eyes and ears do not reach out to see and hear. They are like a telescope. More powerful telescopes don't see farther away, they see their own surface more clearly.
Also, I can tell you with much greater certainty than I could before that I do not have a brain tumor. I never thought I had a brain tumor, but now I KNOW I don't have one. So, you know, that's good.
Hello, friends. Tell me what you're thinking. How are you?
Later. Love.
