Wednesday, September 1, 2004, 6:00pm
Wednesday, September 1, 2004, 6:00pm
As I approach South Station tonight on foot the 6:05pm Worcester Express is already waiting for us at Track 1. This was once a regular expectation – as in 95% of the time. But lately this particular train has pulled in late for its evening run – or not at all.
How odd that I would mention the “truth” this morning. What is Truth? Pontius Pilate of the New Testament once asked this very same question and heard a somewhat obscure and impractical response from the soon-to-be-martyred Jesus of Nazareth.
“I am the Truth,” said Jesus.
Many have claimed to be the caretakers the truth – if not its source, and such claims can become the headwaters for much consternation – even among true believers. Only a dozen years ago, for example, Galileo was formally absolved by papal decree for his perceived heresies. Galileo’s simple confirmation of a sun-centered solar system had stood against official teachings for nearly 360 years, creating an embarrassing ecclesiastical paradox in even the smallest telescopes (as well as from the surfaces of planets thus far visited). As the infallible Oracle of God, the core teachings of the Holy Apostolic Church could not possibly fall short of perfection if truly inspired by a perfect God. Or more to the point, those basing their positions of power upon such declarations of infallibility could never admit to an error. For those in power ‘truth’ is the acceptance of proscribed orthodoxy – not the pursuit of clearer understanding.
I’ll go out on limb for the moment to say that the only pure truth is what happens when nobody is around to observe. Truth claimed by an observer is more like a photograph. As soon as I observe an event it is reduced in my thoughts to a snapshot neatly cropped by preconceived notions. Later when I describe those snapshots to friends I might say, “Here, look at my vacation!” But this is hardly true. This is documentation, not a vacation, and the description is only an image I choose to keep. None of the events I judged to represent a less perfect memoir are included, and even if I did, I’d still be highly selective — missing almost the entirety of what I thought I was preserving. What was once the sense of delicate sand between my toes, the spray of the ocean on my face, the sound of kids running along the beach with seagulls flowing overhead — all of this is rendered as words or 4 x 6 inch pieces of photographic paper. And though real in their own existence, the documentation and descriptions are not the same thing as the original experience they attempt to represent.
All experience is recorded and filtered and the only thing that ever matters with respect to the truth is recognizing just how much of a mistake I might be making when equating my memory with the reality of events and places themselves. Particularly, once I form opinions and make unequivocal statements — all bets are off because now I’ve gone ahead and stuffed my memories and reactions into concrete box from which they may never escape.
Something approaching ‘truth’ only happens in the moment when the experience is mostly pure. Once I get involved with record-keeping I simply muck everything up — including certain train journals!
Heading west, we pass an eastbound train slowing on its final approach to Wellesley Square Station. Soon after our own trainnears Natick Station where we’ll bounce and lurch across uneven rails at 60+ MPH. Here the rails are nailed between ‘Irish’ made stone walls standing 22 feet tall on either side creating a channel dug so deeply below grade that the space collects standing water after every rainstorm — water that has slowly weakened the underlying structure of these tracks – whether anyone has noticed or not.
Boy did that sound authoritative!
How the hell do I know if the tracks through Natick Station are messed up by standing water? It’s just a guess, and yet by the way I wrote this it might sound like I’d read some authoritative report about this in the newspapers.
Before I drown in this line of thinking, here’s the question I’m trying to answer — is it possible to know anything absolutely for certain? This is a scary question because plainly if nothing can be known absolutely then there’s no solid footing underpinning anything.
One way to beat this idea back might be to ask simple questions with certain answers. For example, I will die someday – won’t I? But the answer here offers a false sense of certainty because the stripped-down simplicity of that question avoids everything that could really matter to me — like when and how?
I’ll try two more questions, and then give up for now…
Someone on earth heading to bed tonight will see the sun rise tomorrow morning – with so many people alive isn’t that completely true? Or how about… It will rain tomorrow somewhere on the Earth – won’t it?
But even those ‘certainties’ are not absolutely certain. A rogue asteroid – however unlikely – might strike the planet at any minute kicking up a thick dust cloud that blackens the whole sky before morning. The impact might also release so much heat that no water clouds can form. So the sun might come to a risen position, yet no one will see it through the dust.
René Descartes found a way out of this mess by asserting one irrefutable certainty. It is certain that we can doubt even if all other understanding is incomplete or subject to challenge.
And more practically — absolute certainly is not a problem in my life since I do not need perfect knowledge to act. It’s good enough to believe that the sun will rise, and somewhat reasonable to expect rainfall at some point in the days ahead. To move ahead in my regular activities I just need a sense that my certainty is good enough.
