It's the little things...

The Big Questions
“Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth, more than ruin, more even that death….thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit.  Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid.  Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.”
- Bertrand Russell

Jonathan Chapman / Columnist

Life is a series of questions.  At least, to me, that is what it has become.  I didn’t always used think that way.  There was a time when I took everything at face value.  I can remember a particular instance while at a friend’s home.  Their family had a deer head on the wall, and my father told me that the rest of the deer was on the other side.  Genuinely intrigued by such a revelation, I went and looked in the room adjacent to the den where the head was hung, and lo-and-behold, I found a wall. Yes, my friends, there was no deer body, no cute tail—there was a wall.

Some might think that that deception by my father would have turned me against other supposed “truths” he’d tell me (which was certainly not the case; I fell for the deer head thing at least 10 more times), but I think ultimately his jokes taught me a vital skill.  Instead of not believing him, I just began to ask questions from which I could find my own truths.

And those questions are exactly what we, as college students, must be asking.  Now is the time to take the answers that were always given to us and re-ask the questions that spawned such responses. 

It is in our doubting that our faith becomes stronger.  It is in our questioning of our perceptions that our realities become more vibrant.

Yet we are afraid to question, because questioning challenges us and challenge confronts us with the reality that everything we always took to be truthful and righteous just might be nothing more than desperate attempts at creating a false truth.
It is change, my friends, that terrorizes us. Stability is our hope; inconsistency is all too often our reality.

My plea to you is that instead of always taking things at face value you will look beyond those initial acceptances into the deeper creation that lies beneath them.  Rumi, a 13th century Persian poet writes, “Don’t be satisfied with stories, how things/ have gone with others. Unfold/ your own myth.”  College is about putting yourself out on a creaking limb, hoping you make it to then end where your wings can unfold. Rumi contends that in finding your own realities, “Your legs will get heavy/ and tired. Then comes a moment/ of feeling the wings you’ve grown,/ lifting.”  Allow yourself to be lifted into the very real truths that you have found to be valid.

Go past what your parents always told you.  Many people take their parents’ beliefs and run with them.  Do nothing of the kind.  Don’t be afraid to take your parents’ thoughts and slice them apart, carefully examining their reasoning before deciding whether or not it parallels your own.

And above all, with the same heart, be true to yourself.  Whether it’s Kerry or Bush, Christianity or Judaism, pro-life or pro-choice—be sure of one thing: that it is what you believe. 

Contact Jonathan Chapman at pendulum@elon.edu or 278-7247.