My mind is always changing.
In my boyhood, a changeable mind indicated weakness. “A woman's mind is cleaner than a man's: she changes it more often,” quoth Oliver Herford, a purported “wit” from America’s twentieth century (you bet we’ve come a long way, baby). Verbs depicting uncertainty – dither, falter, waffle, waver, dally, dillydally, seesaw, hedge – were predictably pejorative. A real man “knew his own mind” and stuck with it, hell or high water, you he’uh?
Like most of what I was taught, this is backwards. Nor is the error innocuous. Better stick with a bad idea, facts be damned, than equivocate, revisit, hesitate? Better a blockhead than a wuss? “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead”?
Juridical language compounds the confusion. “The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” – say that again? The whole truth – how much is that? Nothing but – I can’t remember what movie we watched yesterday!
Doubt is healthful, certainty sickness – that’s my catechism. “Who concludes, excludes.” “If you know what you think, you’ve stopped thinking.”
How, one wonders, did humanity think itself into such folly?
Truth is, truth has few friends. Children typically are taught compliance, not candor: do as you’re told, dammit, quit bothering me with questions. Using one’s head threatens the social order, which is predicated on voluntary blindness. Saluting is honorable, “taking a knee” despicable.
Without doubt, radical doubt can debilitate. To get anywhere one must get started, pick a path and stick to it. The conspicuously successful often demonstrate commitment from toddlerdom. Want your kids to succeed? Strap on blinders and forbid them to look left or right.
Part of me rues the years I spent doubting, debating, dawdling. Single-mindedness is a virtue, right? Get ahead and stay ahead!
In some ways it’s wiser not to think, do as one’s told, yip “yassuh” with a toothy grin. That’s what teachers, bosses, and most parents want – obedience, not innovation; allegiance, not allegations. In my boss days, I was no different. Enough questions, just do as I say, OK?
Success may be the advantage of singlemindedness but tedium’s the price. The glory of being’s discovery, the opposite of mimicry. To discover one must explore, peer behind, draw one’s own conclusions and revise them with fresh evidence. Variety is the world’s bounty. Membership in other species may be easier, but being human is more amusing if we use our heads. (“Screw that,” grunts puppy Henry, returning to sleep.) No boredom with my mind always changing. No two days alike.
A favorite Christmas carol features Jesus as the ideal child:
And through all His wondrous childhood
He would honor and obey,
Love and watch the lowly maiden,
In whose gentle arms He lay:
Christian children all must be
Mild, obedient, good as He.
A weary parent’s wet dream maybe, this lickspittle sweetie-pie, but no Jesus. Read Him if you doubt it: “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.” Mild, obedient, good people don’t get persecuted, do they?
My allegiance to truth is sensual as much as principled. Seeing what is makes my world a wonderworld. Changing my mind makes each morning new. Friends sometimes ask where I get my ideas. I don’t, I confess, I just open my eyes.
Is truth practical? Advisable? Safe? Easy? Not likely. Therapeutic? With any luck. Fearful of change, we stay put, then lament we’re stuck. Thinking leads to a quiet heart. Think and you shrink – to a molecule – in the sea of time. Feeling stressed? Here’s my home remedy: change your mind.