Further discussion

So why title my blog based on what I shouldn’t be versus what I should? After all, let’s keep it positive, right? Well, first of all, it’s not that I’m particularly less qualified to be king than most other people. Nor is it that I actually think someone should be king at all. Really it’s just a mantra based on the adage attributed to Thomas Aquinas: Seldom affirm, never deny, always distinguish. This is the guiding principle of the convocation series at my Alma mater, Bethel College in North Newton, KS. Bethel College changed my life while I was there and this Aquinas quote is one of the many things that I’ve striven to use in my life since I graduated from college.

The concept is pretty easy to understand: don’t accept things as truth just because somebody or somebodies you trust told you; don’t dismiss as false that which you don’t understand or trust; in all things, seek to distinguish truth for yourself.

In practice, however, this is an altogether different issue. We all take solace and comfort in those things we “know” to be true. We’re all uncomfortable with the unknown, with stepping outside the box, and with the revelation that we don’t “know” something. Therefore, taking time and risk to consider new points-of-view or new knowledge that challenges our comfortable beliefs feels intensely dangerous and we all fear to call our comfort zones into question. But we must. We must.

Some have suggested that accepting new ideas, credos and ideologies is equivalent to standing for nothing, often canonized as “stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.” This could not be less accurate. To strive for a life of distinguishment is to stand for truth; that being “we all have truths, are mine the same as yours?”
It is difficult when the tenets of so many political, ideological, religious (etc) 0rganizations require almost blind acceptance. Everyone claims to have the real truth and acceptance of their truth as such is the only way to assure your patriotism, or reputation, or your eternal salvation or any combination of those and others.

So what it really boils down to is this: find out for yourself. Don’t take it on someone else’s word for their truth is their own and cannot serve to inform the path on which you travel.