I had to pause the other day, staring at the phrase "quest for
truth". What did that quest look
like to me?
I see the quest as boundless; the joy being in the voyage while
exercising the freedom to peruse any path I find interesting. Learning - if for no other reason than for the sake of
it.
At the tail end of a debate, Christopher Hitchens closed
with the most inspiring speech I've ever heard.
"...that the discussion about what is good, what is
beautiful, what is noble, what is pure, and what is true, could always go
on. Why is that important? Why would I like to do that? Because that’s the only conversation worth
having. And whether it goes on or not
after I die, I don’t know. But, I do
know it’s the conversation I want to have while I’m still alive. Which means that to me the offer of
certainty, the offer of complete security, the offer of an impermeable faith
that can’t give way, is an offer of something not worth having. I want to live my life taking the risk all
the time that I don’t know anything like enough yet. That I haven’t done a spit enough. That I can’t know enough. That I’m always hungrily operating on the
margins of a potentially great harvest of future knowledge and wisdom. I wouldn’t have it any other way... Take the
risk of thinking for yourself. Much more
happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you that way."
It would have to be a pretty large tombstone, but I'll take
that as my epitaph.
Wow! I went on a similar diatribe with a friend last week in a
ReplyDeletelate night, wine-soaked conversation. He asked "When will you stop searching and settle on 'I believe 'this' and get on with your life'?". I told him that that day would hopefully never come; that I would continue to seek and learn every day of my life and that learning and growth is one of the most important elements of it. The notion seemed foreign and threatening to him.