Derived from a draft written originally on February 2, 2011

There is so much absurdity in our world today that I simply can’t process. Numerous mindless amusements continue to propagate across all forms of media, and it seems to me that they only exist to distract us from making any meaningful foray into anything important. 

Today, I wanted to riff on the subject of epistemology, the study of how it is we actually learn things. But so much of what I used to read in my younger years appeared rooted in the absurd idea that reality is all just in our individual minds. There’s a lot about truth being subjective, which is just stupid and ignores physics and common sense as a whole and even the linear progression of time.

Overvaluing opinions has led to the spread of a special kind of learned mental illness. You’re taught to believe that your opinion is your own reality, so people shouldn’t be telling you that it’s false unless they can prove otherwise. It’s as if the universe is governed only by what you perceive with your own senses, flawed as they are, and whatever hearsay you’ve decided to adopt in your social or familial circles. 

It’s just incredibly frustrating that anything I do to try and enlighten myself on so many different philosophical questions brings me to only absurdity and nonsense that parsing only wastes my time. I used to listen to so-called Christian philosophers pontificating about how God ordered the universe in such a way to make it comprehensible, understandable, and terribly beautiful for those who are willing to truly study its wonders and not fall prey to simple observation. 

If we were simply meant to assume that things happen because they are just so, then what is the point of having creative reason? I certainly cannot believe that we have our creativity simply to amuse ourselves with our own little fantasy worlds when our reality seems to be either dull and boring or too stressful and depressing. 

It is as if it is taught out of us to be true problem solvers. Critical thinking has been watered down to answering questions on a worksheet, or even worse, multiple choice quizzes and tests that can be passed through random chance and dumb luck. 

Our dumbed down one-size-fits-all methods of American education package truth as if it’s something that comes pre-packaged that you can buy from Costco or Sam’s Club. You’re supposed to just believe so-called experts at face value whenever they spew out what they call reliable facts and figures. Oftentimes, they’re convenient little bits of truthfulness mixed with deceitful brainwashing techniques.

Truth is not subjective. Our perceptions certainly are, but if the universe were at the will of our own perceptions alone, then there would be total chaos. It would be like a dream world, except with even less order. 

For many people, the only agreeable option to make sense of our apparently random and pointless existence seems to be to adopt a certain dogma. Then, you simply deny reason and base everything that you believe on mere faith in some book or some “spiritual leader.” At that point, you simply declare anything that doesn’t fit your so-called system of morals and beliefs as heretical and evil. 

We’re taught, yes, even in schools, that religion is dangerous. I’ve come to agree with that notion myself. The core issue of our common education, though, is that we aren’t taught to properly reason, either. Conclusions are not the easiest thing to come by, certainly, but it’s not hard to ask questions. Or is it? It seems if you start asking a lot of questions, people want you to simply shut up and return to your little niche: your cubicle, your office, your basement, or your hideout, etc.

I wish I had some truly poignant dissertations available to those inquisitive minds that long to figure out how to fix the world’s problems and not simply become helpless victims of ignorance and pestilence. I’ve previously allowed myself to be victimized by the distractions we are bombarded with every day, especially nostalgia and other forms of self-destructive escapism. But all I’ve found in escapism is emptiness; it left my soul and mind both hollow and wanting.

It’s good to realize when you’re wanting something more to grasp and something new to explore. I’m hardly alone in realizing that how things are currently laid out can simply not continue. If we do not get a handle on how the physical universe operates on a deeper level and that mankind is indeed far more than some evolved form of ape, mass insanity will ensue. Perhaps I’m too late, and too many people have gone insane already for society to ever recover.

You can’t just go by what’s written in books or taught to you in school or by family or friends. Ask yourself the question, how do I know what I know? Put more simply, where do you learn things from? Take note of whatever answers come into your mind. Then analyze each of those sources (parents, school, books, magazines, television, radio, the Internet, wherever) and evaluate them critically. This is always useful exercise, and it isn’t abstract at all. The main issue is that we often confuse opinions for truth, and it’s not that opinions are bad at all; we just need to know when someone has the facts right and their opinions are based more on facts than conjecture. 

We shouldn’t generalize things as either true or false. That is not to say that something is true just because we believe it, or false simply because we do not understand it. Yet, this is how a lot of people seem to conceptualize the idea of “true or false” and everything we are taught in this vein of “truthiness” (Yes, Stephen Colbert, I borrowed your word) is reduced to simple propositions, many obviously clearly true and many obviously wrong. 

If something seems reasonable to us, and it comes from an “expert” source, we tend to assume that it’s mostly true. But people would have you believe that a lot of their opinions are actual truth, and then you are taught that truth is subjective based on people’s perceptions and how their own mind works. You must “get inside someone’s head” to understand what they are saying. Truly, it is helpful to know how foolish people think as well as the great minds, of course. I know now that we don’t study the great minds enough, because we’re bombarded constantly with the works of fools.

The one thing that I know, and this is a very old idea, is that I don’t know much of anything at all. What I do know is that I refuse to be taught by fools, and it’s vital that we try to recognize that foolish folks are likely to be fools no matter what we do. Instead, we should focus on feeding those minds who are still hungry for true knowledge, and want to know how things actually work. 

I probably don’t have to say it, but I will anyway: “Don’t believe everything you see in print.” (Or in a YouTube video or TikTok short.) Of course, that includes what I’m saying. What are my words but ramblings about my thoughts vaguely about epistemology? My only aim today is to make you question how you know anything is true. If I bring you to question the basis of how you know anything and bring you to discover a few little conclusions on how you came to do so, then I have done my part. After all, we all need a bit more introspection and surprise epiphanies in our lives.