the myth of a "Great Escape"

Most of us operate as if we can escape the danger that lies ahead. We live as if we believe right at the last moment, life will take a turn for the best. Whether it is our health or our wealth, better days lay just ahead. But, deep down inside we are anxious, we feel fear. We are not sure the magic will work for us, but against us. We know that escaping reality in our life is just a dream.

We have choices, and our life ultimately is an outcome of those choices. We may think we are not smart enough or we are victims of forces we cannot control, but we must face up to the fact that we face choices, and whether we want to work at making better choices or not, we have to choose.

I have come to believe that basically most choices have two options. We go left or we go right. Sometimes we don't feel prepared for either, but the choice remains for us to make. Let me share a couple of choices that each of us face. There may be more but if we can get these right, most of the others will follow. The first has to do with which of the two sources of knowledge we trust. The second has to do with which of two sources can satisfy our needs. 

I know many people run from anything that sounds like math, but the fact of the matter is that everyone deals with probabilities in some way all the time. We collect data and we make inferences from the data about the likelihood of something existing or happening. If I marry this person, what is the probability my marriage will last forever, that i will be happy, that my spouse will be faithful. Now, rarely does anyone use formal science to do this, but the process is one of collecting observable "data" and using reasoning to conclude the likelihood of something being a certain way. This is  "science" as evidence and we call this "trusting the facts".

In contrast there is evidence we cannot observe. This is called faith. The source of knowledge for faith is not observable data, but experiences that touch our soul in certain ways so that we "know" something exists or that something will likely happen in a certain way, but we cannot "prove it". We call this "trusting our heart".

There is a problem in knowing what to trust. First, experts have found that people have many biases that influence how they process data. These are endogenous (or internal) like confirmation bias, attribution bias, stereotyping, obsessions with justice, age, sex, individual needs, experience and personality. There are also exogenous (or external) biases of culture. When we consider all of these ways that scientific inference can be flawed, we shy away from trusting that, or we should. Second, we know that our "heart" can deceive us. That our emotions often tell us what we want to hear. So trusting knowledge we get from experience can also be risky. 

Maybe trusting either science or faith knowledge is not our choice. Maybe our choice is not between the two, science or faith, but between relying on ourselves as the source of truth or someone who may actually know. Architects know the truth of their design. Authors know the truth about their stories. Maybe our choice of trust is that we rely on something outside our self to provide us with what is true. We can trust another person's opinion, but they have all the same biases and deceptive influences we have. This then ultimately becomes our first choice we cannot escape, do we trust evidence humans can provide or is there a source of truth that is an origin of truth that we must trust?

The second choice we have to make is what do we depend on for satisfying the needs of our soul. There is general agreement that we all desire purpose, joy, freedom, hope, esteem and belonging. We can either seek to gain these from temporary, observable circumstances or from eternal, unobservable provisions. We can either obtain what we need by what we do (merit) or we can receive from a loving benefactor who willfully grants us what we need as unmerited favor. Whether we think about it or not, we choose one path or the other.



If we decide that provisions for these needs of our soul (versus our body), will be bestowed on us by someone who has the resources, the power, the character, the will, and especially the love, then we must learn to trust this source for our well being. However, the outcome of our trust is not based on how smart we are or how sincere we are, but whether the source is truly trustworthy. Is this source of our provision willing and capable to act on our behalf. Choosing the right source for our soul's well being is vital to how we live our life and the outcomes associated with it.    

SO, no matter how much we dream of a "great escape", it is a myth. We must choose. Trusting our self has many problems and trusting something we cannot see and prove seems so scary, and maybe seems foolish. BUT acting as if we can escape the reality is the real foolishness.

Pondering about it a bit may help .....