What if I’m Wrong?
102nd Edition
Happy Spiritual Monday!
The more I learn, the less I know and beyond that, the more I don’t know that I don’t know. There is a power in not knowing, but I observe that many of us get sucked into some competition or battle for knowledge and supremacy which could arguably be blinding to truth.
In the Week Gone
A spark for this topic was lit several years ago while sitting in a medicine ceremony with a group of powerful men, brothers on a journey. At the time, we had each chosen to take a week out of our lives to drop into deep meditation, work with plant medicine and the spirits in them and, ultimately, to up level our being so as to leave as better humans - improved forms of ourselves.
We travelled from down the street, across the state, some a little further to get there. We all created a space in which we could be seen, heard, where we could share deeply or not at all, where anything was on the table for exploration. Some came to heal pain in their lives, some came to experience the camaraderie of the brotherhood, some came to sit with the wisdom of the medicine and the ceremony surrounding it. Some came to cleanse the body and mind through diet, nature and space time. Some came for all of it.
The point is that we all came with the intent to grow, to be better and to more effectively be of service in the world to our fellow man, animal kind and the land. We all felt that we were doing good work.
At the same time, there was a different gathering on the other side of the world. This one was a gathering of people from across the earth, with most flying in on private jets, even the ones who were almost local. All of these participants were monetarily wealthy, held some level of influence in business, government, both, maybe more, likely megalomaniacs.
They travelled to discuss economics and how to change the direction of progress in the world, mostly for their benefits, and to establish protocols through which they could influence thought leaders, world leaders and pioneers in the evolution of humanity.
They all come to further their own positions and their collective association’s aspirations, to dress in fancy clothes, eat fancy meals, to rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in prostitution fees along with other illicit acts.
For those unaware, this past week was the 2024 iteration of this same gathering in Davos, Switzerland, led by the WEF, an annual meeting with a hefty price tag that draws in a mixture of attendees all bringing lots of funding, flying in individual planes to get there, spending copious amounts of resources all to discuss how to “Make humanity better.”
It’s almost too easy to chuckle at the thought of a group of billionaires spending so much time, money, resources to get to the meeting and discuss how those of us who are not in attendance should be spending our own resources. It’s so easy, that I will forego the chuckle here, as it’s redundant, suffice to say it appears to be a big hogwash of funds to garner influence and power over others.
But, What if…
I stopped myself from sharing further on the topic, but I’m sure you get the gist of my sentiments towards this gathering and the group fostering it is not overwhelmingly positive. However, in the deep midst of a journey into sacred meditation, I felt to shed a light on their actions with a What If scenario.
While pretty much anyone with half a brain can look at the scene they portray with a laugh and dismissal, I wondered if they all felt, as we brothers in meditation did, that they were genuinely doing the right thing and what is truely best for the world and themselves?
This thought gripped me in the midst of a deep medicine journey and it honestly spun me a bit as it opened up an entire avenue of potential misjudging of the world around me.
What the 12 of us sitting around the fire, sharing loving words, prayers, love infused foods and kind heartedness felt to be our best work was what WE felt to be the best work. In this framing, going on a private jet to an overpriced conference to proclaim our superiority over others and engage in acts unfit for mention here was clearly not the “right” thing to do. But this was our framing.
What if the few hundred folks who went to Davos, sat in the meetings, ate the food, flew the jets, paid the hookers, did the drugs, boosted their egos and the lot all genuinely felt this was the truely best thing they could have possibly been doing with their lives?
It would be wrong for me to cast it aside, as my judgement only arises from my frame of view, and they would likely see me and my brothers’ actions as a negative with relation to their framing.
The follow up in my mind came when I considered, “What if we are wrong in what we are doing here today?”
I wondered if I had maybe just convinced myself that I was walking the right path, when in fact I wasn’t. If perhaps we had all done the same thing and fooled ourselves.
This led to a little spin into the abyss of what if scenarios and meaning of life chats with higher beings that anyone who has experienced a deep medicine journey would relate to and anyone who hasn’t would be clueless to, but I came out of the meditation with an interesting clarity around the situation.
What I was left with was a sense of how easily we can latch onto our own rightness, our own sense of being correct, proper, true with no room for wiggling. This can lead to a closed mind, which in turn leads to a less than stellar experience of life and living.
Wright & Rong
Last week I mentioned how some of us are so staunch in defence of our point of view on life and certain topics, that there is simply no need for conversing as no new information could possibly get in.
In expansion of this, I encourage myself every day to observe and examine where I may be too attached to my own sense of rightness and how that may be limiting me from learning something new or opening myself up to new, exciting experiences in life.
The brightest minds I know all encourage us to listen intently to arguments and information from the opposition, as this can give clarity to the other’s sense of thought and position. Many of us suffer without knowing it from cognitive biasing, algorithms in our content diet, faux supportive groups of friends and family. I say we suffer form it, as when we only surround ourselves with those who agree with us, validate our points of view or embolster our ego sense of our selves, we miss out on learning something new about ourselves, life and the world at large.
We sometimes call this collusion, or a gathering of small forces to secretly or deceitfully decide on a judgement for or against an opinion. We have friends who collude with us - not in the strictest legal sense of the word - but in the way that they will simply parrot our thoughts and feelings to reinforce our already established belief systems versus honestly showing us where our own thought patterns may be flawed.
So, whether we agree on these principles or others, I feel we can all learn something from each other. When we put ego aside, surrender a desire to be correct, open ourselves to being wrong, we can learn something new, experience novelty in life, which is a precursor to being in flow with the forces of nature within and around us.
I share on my perspectives often, and I aim to update my views as they change. My personal practice is to remind myself to say - aloud or in silence - “right now” at the end of a statement, for I know that this thought may shift entirely in the not so distant future.
If we can all remain open, fluid yet set in our own morals, we can grow as a people through mutual love vs through hatred.
I still disagree with the meetings held in Davos as they morally go against my fabric of being a good human - right now - but I hold the possibility that I may be wrong in my judgements. Until then, I will continue to do the work to make myself a better version of myself through love and not chasing power over others.
Stay open, stay strong, stay awake.
And so it is, with love.
What if I'm Wrong?