tsor’s blog

    There is one certainty in my life, a certainty that outweighs all of the knowledge - or rather what little knowledge - I have acquired. That certainty is that I don't know. I don't know if the universe was created, how it was created, or even what it is. I don't know if there is a being with divine power that observes mankind - I know only that I have seen nothing that suggests such a case to me.

    I don't know if the man I voted for to be the next united states president will take our country in the right direction. I feel that he will. But I am plagued with uncertainty. Will his negotiations work, as he, I, and so many young Americans hope? Or will Iran and other enemies of the United States play him for a fool? Are they really the enemies of freedom, or are they truly waiting for the opportunity to reason with a new presidential administration, to be brought into our fold? Am I naive for believing in Obama? I don't know. I agree with his reasoning regarding the divisions in our nation, but I am blinded by inexperience and a lack of substantive knowledge of policy.

    I don't know what will happen tomorrow, how I will pay my bills over the summer, what second job I will pick up if I don't get this job as a fire fighter. I don't know where my life will take me, or what I will do for a career. I don't know where I will be in 5 years, and certainly not 10 or 20. The number of things I don't know is so vast....I'm not even aware of the degree to which I am ignorant.

    I thirst for knowledge, but I barely know where to start. I know my intellectual passions : character, communication, human rights, crises, religion, history, politics, international relations, books, movies, video games, and music. The path to gaining even a rudimentary level of knowledge in any of these areas is daunting. Yet I am closing in on a point in my life where the desire to know what I am talking about when I discuss my passions, to have opinions, ideas and solutions drawn from reason and based in fact, is catching up to my 'I don't know' comfort zone. I have begun compiling a list of books that I intend to read - a list containing authors whose viewpoints I endorse, and some who I disagree with so vehemently that I can barely stomach the thought of them(and yet I feel as though I will grow far more from reading these authors than I ever could from reading those whom I agree with) -  and the list, barely begun, already contains dozens of books. Thats a years worth of reading and more as it grows, unless I successfully learn to speed read.

    My challenge is enormous. I want both practical wisdom in my daily life and deep, broad knowledge in the subject areas that pique my curiosity. I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes :

    "Until one is committed there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. There is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans, that the moment one definitely commits oneself then providence moves too. All sorts of things begin to occur which would never have otherwise occurred, and a whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and material assistance which no man could have dreamt would have come his way. I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe's couplets:
'Whatever you can do or dream you can begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.'"

I have, as of this week, committed myself. Only the future will tell where providence has moved.