How much do you think you know?

I've read this article a few days back and thought it was worth sharing. It was written 25 years ago by a man who I believe was one of the greatest men ever to live. He was a doctor, a thinker, a researcher, a scientist, a journalist, a philosopher, an author..etc,etc,etc. He even had tv program where he talked about science and species. Anyway, I could talk about Dr. Mostafa Mahmoud till tomorrow so I won't bother you with that. As I said, the article was written 25 years ago so may agree or not agree with some of it, but I think in all it's worth the read and perhaps the debate.

Oh and forgive me for the crappy translation, I couldn't find an English version and had only 20 minutes, so yeah.. it's not perfect.

Deceitful Reality
-------------------

What we see is not always the truth.

Even that which we see with our own eyes and touch with our own hands.

We see the sun moving around the earth each single day, despite the opposite being the truth, it's the earth that revolves around the sun.

We see the moon as the largest planet in the sky while in fact it's the smallest one.

We touch the solidness of iron, feel how hard it is, while in fact it's just a bunch of scattered atoms in an empty space with the distance between each atom and the other is as wide as the distance between stars and what seems to us as ''solid'' and ''hard'' is in fact nothing but an electromagnetic force and attraction. We're touching the laws of science with our fingers and not iron.

We look at the sky as ''up/above'' and at the ground as ''down/below'' while in truth there is no up or down and the sky envelopes and surrounds the earth from every direction and we think the frost of the north and south poles is the coldest there is while compared to the cold depths of the void it's actually a pit of hell.

When it comes to human related facts, our eyes, tongues and ears deceive us even more.

The kiss we think at first is a project of love turns out to be a project of theft and the murder everyone thought was due to nothing but hatred is soon discovered to be out of love. A husband might reason the adultery of his wife due to her over awareness of her own beauty while in truth it may be motivated by her self consciousness, a lack of self worthiness and sense of inferiority that she's trying to overcome by impressing other men and moving from one infidelity to another.

And that which the newspapers write of as heroism and bravery, the hero himself might have known that it was, in truth, a suicide.

When it comes to social realities things get more complicated and truth get lost in a web of many conflicting and counterfeiting wills making judgement at face value an utmost naivety.

and in historical facts, historians write under the thumps of those in power, their pens delivering nothing more than what the ''powerful'' want them to say.

Making nothing more difficult than knowing the truth.

Reaching Mars is way much easier than knowing in certainty the facts about the life of a rose that blooms everyday near your window. Rather, even our minds adorn our emotions into something greater and more acceptable, so we think that it is the love of glory that motivates us to become the best while in fact it's just vanity and self-love .. and we think that is justice that prompts us to cruelty, when it's hatred.

Which of us can say for certain.. ''I've realized the truth'' ? Who would dare claim to know even himself beyond a shadow of a doubt?

It's not out of humility that we say: ''only God knows''.

For the only firm truth in the world if there be one is: We are ignorant of even what is going on under our own eyes and ears - and in spite of our ignorance each one of us still thinks they're the ones that are right and have set the gallows and burning fires for the others.

Had we realized our ignorance and our destiny the door to mercy and love would've opened in our hearts, and life on earth would've become worth living.

When will we know that we do not know?

Wonderful!

I feel that all of us attempt to express our own perception of truth in the poetry we submit. Of course, as subjective as we must be, "truth" is not only limited by our relative position, but by the place we have arrived at in our journey.

"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing"
- Socrates

Thought-provoking! Glad you shared this.