NO TRUTH

I believe as deeply as I believe anything that there is no Truth, only perspective. What I think is reality is only one possible interpretation of what is, what could be. I have vivid examples of how, over time, my opinion has changed.  My memories are altered by how I and life change over time. Nothing is fixed, unalterable. The ability to revise, awaken, evolve, to change, is the glory of human consciousness, human spirit.
     And yet over and over again I fall away from those beliefs and buy into the "reality" of whatever is in front of me. I hear the negative voices in my head as speaking the Truth. I censor my opportunities and then believe that censorship. When my mind says, why bother, or, what's the point, I think that's the truth so in fact why bother, there is no point. 
     Of course, we couldn't function if we didn't accept there are "really real realities" we live in and by. We need a certain clarity of vision that depends on fixed ideas and things. But that vision is only useful if it enables us to live more fully and productively. We need guideposts and landmarks to navigate the world.
     But there is a world of perception that isn't useful or productive. That world is filled with every no I say to myself, every habit that defeats me before I begin, every negative story I tell myself about who I am and who I can be. This is the world that imprisons me and limits all that I am capable of doing.
     I keep coming back to this idea - there is no Truth, only perspective - because I need to remind myself again and again that the negative world in my head isn't the true one, that my thoughts have no other reality but the reality I confer upon them, that there are limitless potentialities in me. When I remember this I feel the possibility of freedom, and though I have to keep reminding myself of it, it's there for me to find again and again.

CLOSED CONTEXT: OPEN CONTEXT

There are "frameworks" and "contexts" which are the opposite of what interests me.  Many contexts grow out of rigid ideas - the orthodoxies of organized religion, political ideologies, conspiracy theories.  These are closed systems and their main characteristic - and failing - is that they don't allow for new information and ideas.  Everything that might be "new" is made to fit a locked world view, interpreted as further evidence of the rightness of the particular set of beliefs.  These systems constrict rather than expand, limit rather than increase.

All beliefs - those that constrict and those that expand - are just that, beliefs. For a long time, I believed every negative thought the voices in my head shouted at me, believed that I wasn't good enough and was doomed to frustration and unhappiness.  I thought there must be something fundamentally wrong with me, some flaw I couldn't see.  And because it's hard to act against that tidal wave of fear and doubt, the facts of my life lived out those thoughts.  I was frustrated and unhappy, felt alien and isolated; I censored myself over and over again because, since I was doomed to failure, what was the point of even trying to achieve and connect?  These self-loathing, self-lacerating beliefs ruled me and turned me into an emotional anorexic; I was starving for connection and purpose but I couldn't feed myself. I was living in a closed system of negative beliefs and everything that happened was proof of the rightness of those beliefs.  How could it be otherwise when I myself was the main witness for the prosecution?

Then something inside me began to shift, and the closed narrow ideology of my self-loathing and fear slowly, very slowly showed enough cracks so that the light of hope, at first a despairing kind of hope, could come in.  A flicker of possibility, the merest shadow and I grabbed on to it.  I didn't know it then, but I had come a great distance in order to begin, to climb out of the bushes and step on to the path.

Questions worth asking:

If belief, meaning and value are conferred by us through our interpreting consciousness, how do we know what's True with a capital T?  Does Truth even exist?

How can we create a new context through which to judge our experience, transform a context that constricts into one that expands?

How do we move toward freedom?