The Way, the Truth, and the Life

Some time ago a dear friend of mine lent me a book, "Freedom from the Known" by Jiddu Krishnamurti. I only just started reading it, but I can already tell that it's a hit for me. In only the first 16 pages or so, the author has already established that pretty much every ideology, philosophy and religion in the world is all just bullshit that is being spoon-fed to us.

It's a pretty bold stance and since I haven't even read the whole book yet, I may have to return to it in my future posts, but this initial point is already one that resonates with me.

His actual point is easy to miss. It's not that it would be useless to seek wisdom and answers to all the big questions; the point is that we have a tendency of hoping those answers are handed to us on a silver platter. How Krishnamurti sees it, however, is that true wisdom comes from the process of figuring things out on your own. It's like with most skills: for example, while someone might explain to you how to hold and throw a dart, you will never learn the actual sport that way. Only through practice and finding your own way can you produce some real results.

Ideologies, philosophies and religions all come with another problem: they each give us their own particular lens through which to observe the world. Confirmation bias then leads us to see what we want, believe what we want and cultivate blind faith towards whatever group we might identify with. This narrows our perspectives, hinders our ability for critical thinking and fuels negative feelings towards those outside our group.

Maintaining our own ability to think things through is no easy task in this age. We are constantly bombarded with information, news, and propaganda, all of which our brains are then processing to create all kinds of connections, assumptions and patterns, some of which might not be correct at all. It's easy to get overwhelmed.

What we can do, though, is to be aware of this. Perhaps be a little more careful which sources we trust, to better consider who we choose to align with, and remain vigilant in preserving our ability for critical thinking. Perhaps even carve our very own, personal lens to see it all through. Is that a scary thought?

Or, you know, just take a break from watching the news or other media. The world's not going to end. I promise.

And if it does, I'm sure you're not going to miss the event.