Everything, and nothing at all.
Which is mostly an ontological problem if all we can know is what we know, and that will not and cannot ever be "everything."
Everything I know, is a construct of my reality, so I believe it. Even the parts that feel artificial, plastic, fake, whatever you want to call it. If it exists in my consciousness, then it is authentic, it is something to be believed. But my perception is sorely limited to the contingency of my subjectivities, even if these subjectivities are constantly growing, shifting, and bending to make room for new narratives about myself. They would change even if I said: "Hey! You stop that, stop right there. I like this narrative." Nope. Not in my control. Not in my power. But I will believe the shifting is happening anyway. I think to deny such belief of the obvious is to cross over into insanity, which is also undefinable to me. But for the sake of this post, I will say it is something like never having your own self-awareness align with other's perceptions of you. I like Kaylee's point how she thinks it's incredible that we ever find consensus about anything at all. I totally agree in bewilderment that a thing like love, a la Corder, can be so strong it causes us to make room for another perception we will never fully understand as another inhabits it.
For one, I have become conditioned to think authenticity, especially as it relates to the narratives we tell ourselves to survive, is a dirty word--an unforgivable sin if you dare say it in front of some professors of English studies. Why, though? Even if there isn't such thing as inauthenticity, which I do actually agree with (at least via human perception), can there not at least be a continuum of more or less authentic stories? I think we have to say no, but in a way that seems limiting because it creates an absolute truth. Maybe there is a difference between the authenticity of all the stories humans can possibly conceive of, and the story of the universe that precedes and follows mankind in general. A story without human perception. But wait, that doesn't work because "story" is just a human construct.
Everything I know, is a construct of my reality, so I believe it. Even the parts that feel artificial, plastic, fake, whatever you want to call it. If it exists in my consciousness, then it is authentic, it is something to be believed. But my perception is sorely limited to the contingency of my subjectivities, even if these subjectivities are constantly growing, shifting, and bending to make room for new narratives about myself. They would change even if I said: "Hey! You stop that, stop right there. I like this narrative." Nope. Not in my control. Not in my power. But I will believe the shifting is happening anyway. I think to deny such belief of the obvious is to cross over into insanity, which is also undefinable to me. But for the sake of this post, I will say it is something like never having your own self-awareness align with other's perceptions of you. I like Kaylee's point how she thinks it's incredible that we ever find consensus about anything at all. I totally agree in bewilderment that a thing like love, a la Corder, can be so strong it causes us to make room for another perception we will never fully understand as another inhabits it.
But all this is also why I don't really "believe" anything at all anymore. I don't believe when I have something "right," be it intellectual, social, environmental knowledge, etc., because I know that it is never fully complete knowledge. So I don't ever say I know anything for sure anymore. It just seems so arrogant to me for anyone to claim there are things they know FOR SURE (and no, that is not a diss to Allison--I don't know why a man would rape 5-yr-old either). I think all we can do is be curious and live to stand corrected in the realities we construct as more accurate or complete narratives seem to tumble wildly or slide gracefully into our lives. There is nothing wrong with existence being paradoxical,the way I see it. Just makes it more complex, more entwined, more interesting.
I still think the chaos is beautiful.
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