On Being Right
Yesterday I noticed with how much passion I clung to being "right" about something. Why does it feel so important?
Right now, as it has been perhaps always but feels worse than usual lately, everywhere you go in the world, you can experience overwhelming emotions around “being right”.
Politics and religion/beliefs are two huge areas of life where the feeling of “right” for humans as a whole most passionately lives.
Wars continue to rage in the Middle East, Ukraine with Russia, and in many other countries in the world because one group is “right” and the other “wrong”, and by golly, we are going to keep fighting until they admit it. There is a different war, an unofficial civil one, going on in the US, with a growing number of victims dead, imprisoned without recourse, and otherwise maimed.
And we do not have to belabour the point about people killed, imprisoned, or ruined because of religions and other strong kinds of beliefs. It has been ever thus since we have any clear records of human history.
Why Is Being Right So Important!
I wonder if by looking at my own tendency to adore the feeling of “knowing” I am right about something, perhaps I can understand more about this thing that moves so powerfully within and among humans.
Yesterday, I was having a day. You know the type of day. I had had some long conversations with people before going to see my mom and hearing from her how trapped and lonely she feels, then logged into my workplace online and proceeded to juggle incoming emails with various responsibilities related to running class.
The multi-tasking attempts were becoming more stressful and tiring when toward the end of class, one email in particular ignited the pool of smouldering oil within me, as it were, and after I logged off work, I blew up.
My poor husband received the collateral damage as he had to hear in painful detail why the person who wrote the email was utterly and completely wrong about everything, and I was totally right.
It Used To Be Much Worse
I console myself with the fact that when I was in my early twenties, it was a lot worse than now. Then, it felt like I could never admit I didn't know something. Of course not knowing and/or not fully understanding is foundational to how we think of right and wrong. If we only had all the information in a situation, if the judge were able to hear all the facts of a case, then surely it would be crystal clear who is right and who is wrong! Right?
I remember being teased by one friend in particular because I could not admit I did not know something. I still can feel the sting of having to admit to myself I had a problem with it.
I am the youngest in my family and as such I was intrinsically far behind my sisters and mother in the general knowledge and depth of understanding I had about basic things in life. I was frequently humiliated by one or more of them because of errors I made, song lyrics I misheard, words I mispronounced because I had only ever read them but not heard them, and because of other childish, ordinary mistakes I made.
I must have decided at a very early stage of life that this was intolerable. I determined that I would learn all the things, and I would make sure I was right!
As a result, of course, I was the one who was intolerable at times, trying to represent to all and sundry that I was right and knew what was what.
What I didn't realise, of course, is that no human can possibly learn all the things. Confronted with the vastness of the universe, both matter that can be perceived or measured in some way and dark matter we can only infer must be there, as well as the immeasurable unknown dimensions and 'content' of the spiritual and other subtle realities that extend beyond space and time, humans at some point cannot help but recognise that all the knowledge that humanity has accumulated over millenia is limited, perforce.
How much more so is the knowledge of one human like myself incredibly tiny, in comparison with all there is to know?
The Johari Window
I have mentioned in a previous post here that there is a further layer of complexity when it comes to personal knowledge and understanding, in the context of what is known as the Johari Window, after the first two letters of the names of the three people who elucidated the concept in this way.
I have seen a number of versions of the window, but here I refer to four panes where one is what I know that I know, the second is what I know that I don't know, and the third is what I don't know that I know. The final is the most difficult to mine: what I don't know that I don't know. And because of all three 'don’t know' panes, especially what I don't know that I don't know, I will always need other people in my life, friends, hostile or indifferent people, and a spiritual director and perhaps a therapist, to shine necessary light when and where I cannot.
Of course while the four panes are shown as being identical in size, that is far from being the case in terms of their contents. What I know that I know and what I know that I don't know are both relatively small. What I don't know that I know is indeterminate, as it represents unconscious knowledge beyond ordinary access, which comes up in dreams and other indirect ways.
But what I don't know that I don't know is probably more immense than I can imagine. This area is by definition completely beyond me at this time.
Why No One Can Be “Right”
Our human limitations mean that even though it seems obvious I am right about certain things, especially at times like these heightened emotion around that which feels incredibly important, it is impossible for any human to know consciously everything there is to know even about one specific situation, event, or other discrete ‘thing'. There will always be things we know we don't know, we don't know that we know, and don't know we don't know.
So the compelling psychological and emotional reasons aside, I cannot ever be sure I am right about anything at all.
Why This Is a Good Thing
Younger me would be in utter despair at this point. “But I need to know! I need to be right,” she would be wailing.
A slightly wiser version of me, at 60, sees that the limitations of human knowledge and understanding could potentially be a unifying force in times of conflict.
If we can just admit that we only see dimly as in a very imperfect mirror, as Paul reminded us in I Corinthians 13 (the famous love chapter read at so many weddings), then the humility that naturally accrues around those limitations provides a buffer between what I think I know and what I am annoyed about you not knowing!
I can admit that maybe there is something I am not properly seeing and understanding in what you are saying or perceiving.
Contemplatives talk about the ‘cloud of unknowing', the ineffable, vital spiritual realities and mysteries that are beyond human ability to fully know or describe in words.
Understanding that my understanding is limited beyond my beliefs and perceptions of its limitations, surely I can then soften my harsh stance toward people who have the audacity to disagree with me, when I am so obviously right!
How This Relates to Love
These days, Paul's writings in the letters of what is commonly called the New Testament are not popular in a number of circles.
One thing, though, that I think he was powerfully inspired about was love, as expressed, again, in I Corinthians 13.
Paul understood that knowing all the languages there are, human and ‘angelic', without knowing and embodying the languages of love is just meaningless noise.
He understood that the most noble self-sacrifices and dramatic acts of philanthropy and martyrdom without love are meaningless.
And he knew there was a profound intrinsic connection between love and the humility of knowing we only know in part, while eagerly hoping to be completed in love.
Not the ‘you make me complete' of popular love songs. Two people who come together in brokenness seeking to be completed by the other too often end up become only further wounded. Rather this is about the healing and growing wholeness that comes through being truly seen, heard, and loved.
Love knows us fully. When we come truly to know that we are fully known, that opens up dimensions of wisdom and love that simply could not be accessed before.
“Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner,” is the well-known saying of Pascal.
Perhaps it is also true that tout comprendre, c'est aimer complètement.
Because when I fully know and understand, how can I not simply love?
Does This Make Any Sense?
I have as usual been going on and on without letting you get a word in edgewise.
What do you think? Am I on the right track in any of this or completely off base? Don't hold back, please.