Knowing

I read incessantly. I have for years. All kinds of books. I'm partial to the classics though. My wife and I even read together...outloud to each other. It's a great way to share something together. As we've entered October my thoughts have turned to fall...the cooling, the spookiness. I love it, even if it is still hot as blazes here in Florida. Anyway, I took the opportunity to finally tackle a book I had wanted to read for some time simply because it is so famous. It's one of those reference type books that you need to read becasue so many other things play off of it. The book is Dracula.

I had avoided it thus far because I do not like horror at all. I tend to internalize things far too much and a twisted movie or book will haunt me for weeks, years even. But I figured I'd just quit reading it the moment I got creeped. But surprisingly, I am enjoying it tremendously! I haven't found it scary at all! Dark, yes. Gothic, yes. Spooky, a bit. But not scary at all. I'm not done yet though, so stay tuned on that.

I only mention it because I have actually found parts of it so relavent to my own life. Maybe that's why I'm not creeped. I kind of live in a world like that...Obviously I don't know any people who change into bats or anything, but the air of mystery and a world where there are beings and forces at work that the regular world is oblivious to...that is very much my world.

I was struck by a couple of themes in the book. First is the idea that if your mind and senses are in doubt, nothing can be certain. Many of the characters face this when they experience things that should not be. Van Helsing, whom I dearly love as a character, points this out at one point. Sometimes all we need is confirmation that we are not nuts...then no matter how fantastic, we can deal.

Secondly is the idea of little truths and big. When attempting to explain his theory to Dr. Seward, Van Helsing starts by telling him all kinds of stories that seem fantastic, but are true. Seward is lost and finally gets Van Helsing to tell him the point...That when we learn something is true, we have a tendency to use it to exclude many other larger truths of which it is a part. When it would be far better to cling to the small truth, understanding that it could be a strand in a much larger tapestry that we do not yet understand. It's a matter of open-mindedness.

Lately, I have been experiencing some things, learning some things, that came to a point this week. Where previously I would have rejected them, I recently had confirmation much like I speak of above, so I knew I wasn't nuts and that gave me the freedom to open myself to possibilities that could expound from some of the little truths I understood. The result was amazing and produced further confirmations that I am not nuts, and therefore more openness to larger things!

If you've never been in doubt of your senses, you can't possibly understand what I mean. But once you find yourself in the paradox: being certain of something you experienced, that logic and common sense tell you couldn't be, the world is no longer solid. Everything we know is mitigated through our mind and senses. If either of these cheat, we are lost. How could we know anything? It is not a pretty place to be, trust me. Just think it through and imagine. Did you do what you thought you did? Are all the people you meet really there and did they say the things you remember being said? The world becomes an illusion and one is constantly afraid of falling through it. I guarantee if you put yourself through this thought experiment, you will come away with a much softer heart toward those who have serious mental illness.

But if in that storm of illusion, someone bearing authority steps in and says, your senses are fine, your mind is sound. Now you find yourself in a whole new world, a bigger world. One that you now realize you understand very little of, but as long as it's real, all is well! And if that one thing turned out to be real, what else that I may have discounted, what more that I haven't experienced could be! Even if you haven't ever doubted your mind or senses, you could still grasp this second part. We've all learned things at some point in our lives that we were totally surprised to find were real. But once we accept that truth, we must also allow that there could be other truths we didn't know. Of course ultimately truth must by definition be one unified thing, but I'm talking in the realm of our own experience and not in theory here, so in our finite experience there will always appear to be many truths that agree and disagree to varying levels.

Now I have intentionally avoided describing my own recent experiences that have been so well echoed in the book. And that is for good cause. If I were to describe them, you would undoubtedly evaluate and classify them into nice neat boxes in your own mind. And that would color your opinion of me and everything else I write...not based on reality, but on your own third hand interpretation of it. Good or bad, it would be incorrect. Further, since great truths are usually unflinchingly simple, the power of the moment often falls flat in the retelling and people miss it entirely anyway. So, the metaphor of the book and the round-about description will have to do...at least until we are face to face in a quiet discussion somewhere.