It would be no simple thing to forget, but still one easier than the weight of unwanted knowledge. Every profession of man is laced with regret of one kind or another and these issues are as much a part of their lives, their professions as the good they may achieve in them. We know that the over used example of death and taxes, is also an accurate one, that the Policeman can only make his community as safe as those that work against him allow, that the physician sometimes has to walk away from the bed of the patient too badly broken .
These are regarded as facts, but there are different types of truths, some that ring true only to those exposed directly to them. As most information we take in adapts our thinking even sometimes in nearly negligible ways, it none the less becomes part of the composite of who and what we are. It adapts our views and responses over time.
Our exposure to what we may define as almost unbelievable news really isn’t that much different from the news of this weeks shootings or the newest atrocity quite normal in our society. It’s all about what we know. Every time I learn a new way to fix something ,the right way, or I find a new art technique that is really nothing new at all, I’m wide eyed with a goofy grin for awhile or a furrowed brow trying to figure how I overlooked it.
Every new job you’re trained for, or development within your career, is a similar, though maturely concealed, childlike moment. But, learning at our age is never a publicly “fun” thing. It is mistaken by some of us as an absence of something we should already know, but that’s just pride conflicting with something that has always seemed a good practice in the past, the open minded acceptance of facts until they are proven or dis-proven.
You can say “well that’s not reasonable” in a world so full of conflicting views, and disinformation, and your partially correct. At our age wariness has to enter the equation. But also, we have been told that eggs were horrible for us at one time due to certain kinds of cholesterol, after a time indefinite that our ancestors embraced them as one of the staples of healthy eating. Now eggs are good for us again. There has been a rethinking, but all the dancing around in labs, changing partners, didn’t cloud the message about them. We still ate them and for the most part were less the worst for wear.
There are all kinds of similar truths, ones that may have political or sociological veneers, but none the less have cores of clear meaning. The question is “how we choose to respond to what were told?” Maybe a more pertinent example for this subject would be a scenario not that rare in the past, when villages had yet grown into cities and a portion of the community’s care was still left with the people of the area. If a wolf or a rabid dog, or some other animal, that could be a threat to the group, was sighted, whether the witness was considered believable or not it was taken seriously, none the less, as a preventive against needless injury until it was proven or dis-proven a reality.
Whether that was because of our faith in one another or the tighter bonds of community then, or whether in certain ways we’ve grown beyond the common sense of the past in our arrogance, and confidence in the rest of what we know.
One last example -(hopefully I won’t mangle it too badly) there is a story in the Martial arts history about an old instructor who is interviewing a confident young man who wants to be his student. The old man talks and the young one seems to counter his ideas, with past teaching he’s received. Finally the old man asks for tea to be brought. He then serves the tea himself to the young man. As he pours, he continues pouring until the cup is full and it overflows onto the table. The young man surprised says “stop, your overfilling the cup”. The old man then explains “You are like this cup, too full. To learn you must come as an empty cup with an open mind.
Maybe that is the reason we struggle so hard against acceptance of certain things. What we’ve been taught is too well ingrained, whether accurate or not. With subjects of the paranormal especially, those dealing with UFO, and sometimes not so little green men, we may try but eventually balk when examining these possibilities.
To be honest, even with all we’ve personally seen and captured on film, my first instinct, even when covering a thoroughly researched case, is to shake my head. It can’t be real, but it is and no love for my family or fear of social opinion, no religious dogma can change that fact.
Not hundreds or thousands but millions, world wide, understand the same truth. Through what seems like life changing experience, they have accepted an added concern in their lives as real as taxes and death. We all hope that the rest of mankind will someday empty its cup and begin to treat this issue more like the wolf at the door it really is.