Everything you know is wrong!

Once upon a time, I had a plant sitting in the window, which had been left for several months to grow toward the light.  Then one day I decided that I wished the plant would exhibit more symmetry in its form – so I turned it 180 degrees around.

Observing this, a friend said, “You can’t do that.  It’s like telling the plant, ‘Everything you know is wrong!’  You have to turn it gradually, a little bit each day.  Let it get used to the change slowly.”

Some days I feel like I've been turned 180 degrees.  And I wonder if everything I know is wrong.

Which leads me to the question: “What do I know?” 

Looking back, I see that the knowing I had as a child, the knowing I had as a teenager, the knowing I had as a young adult – have all changed.  I have to admit, it seems likely that such knowing as I have now will change too.

When I consider the history of the world, I notice a similar pattern.  Each era had its beliefs.  Many concepts that were widely accepted as true, later came to be recognized as wrong.  The world is not flat.  Bleeding does not cure disease. Negroes are not inferior to whites.  Margarine is not healthier than butter.  A woman’s place is not invariably in the home. 

It follows then that many of the facts the world knows today will likewise be replaced by an even more advanced understanding of things.  It seems that both in my life and in the history of the world, the older I get and the older the world gets, the closer we each get to certain truths. 

But  the closer I get to the truth the more I feel like I’m coming closer to something familiar.  It is as if in my old age I will see the flower of the seed that was me as a child.  The flower has always been in the seed.  The truth, it seems, unfolds.

Right at the moment, I can’t quite make out that flower of the older me.  I can merely sense it.  I imagine that older me will be ideal (of course!).  I will be the embodiment of love, serenity, joy, peace—and most especially, wisdom.  What I can’t imagine is sustaining those ideal qualities.  For, thus far, every perfect moment in my life has been, like a flower—ephemeral.

So how then will I achieve a lasting wisdom?  I guess that I will not.  I guess that the older and wiser I get, the more aware I will be of how much more I have to learn.

So I wonder, is this growth of a single soul – is this evolution of the world – infinite?  I can’t conceive of an infinite journey.  Because the journey, I am told, is toward oneness – toward that end where everything that knows itself as separate also knows itself as one.  And that seems like a final and finite destination.  Can it be reached?

Why not?  After all, it says so right on our money: E. pluribus Unum.

 Painting: Gift for Romney - 2003 - 11 3/8  x 7 ½  - Watercolor and Gouache - By James Stephens  (Available for purchase at the Lemberg Gallery)