MY ANARCHIST SENSIBILITY

Is not our temperament the coloration of events? Do we not encounter everything in the mirror of our personality? -- Emerson

We are interpreting beings.  Information comes in through the senses and then ultimately we invest it with meaning What meaning we give grows out of our experience and the ideas we've absorbed from our culture.  These meanings are ephemeral, not written in stone, and can change over time, do change as new experience comes. 
     Our beliefs are interpretations which is why the same event is often seen in some many different ways. Religion, ideology, any system of belief fits new information into old structures, aligns new information with prior beliefs. We choose our perspective, our means of interpreting, and become certain that we are right.
     The belief that we are right makes us feel safe. If we already know what we think, if we hold on to it hard enough, it gives the illusion that we are standing on solid, unchanging ground. It appears that most people need this sense of solid ground, of an anchor, so that they won't go spinning into the void.
     Other people - like me - find liberation in the belief that there is no solid ground. All things are contingent, mutable; we ourselves have only our interpretations of reality; we don't have direct access to "reality" itself.
     I see the world from what I like to call my anarchist sensibility. Anarchism is against making institutions of ideas.  Spontaneous structures are created to deal with whatever arises and then they are meant to pass away as new situations arise. I see myself as if playing against a tennis ball machine - I have faith that spontaneously I can hit whatever comes. I face the world with confidence - bring it on, I say, bring it on.
     My anarchist sensibility is an ideal that animates my imagination. But it's just one possible interpretation. There is no Truth with a capital T, only perspective. Is every perspective equally valid? How then are we to justify calling something bad or good? These are the kinds of questions that keep philosophers very busy. But more about that later...