Sol's Inner Vault

Well into 2024, there is now a prominently new and extra layer of consideration that is freshly attached to nearly everything. Already so quickly automatic, it's not even realized in the casual moment.  A requisite super question over all that we see and hear: "Is this really real?" A silly redundancy in phrase is suddenly a serious challenge to carefully negotiate. Today, everything encountered is suspect. Everything we hear, witness, and interpret can be something else entirely by design.  Definitely makes reality a conundrum, as if our lives are lacking in risk or uncertainty. No one wants to do this extra assessment, but with AI, VR, and other new technologies slipping into our lives like a blind and barreling movement, whatever traditional fabric of conscious world from before, now worlds are very much plural.

First Voice: There isn't any proof. None. You take the Bible's story on faith. Whether the entire sixty-six books, or just the Old Testament, or only the first five books. All the versions of the Bible's content require believing without tangible evidence for any of it.   Whether it is the ageless wisdom of the Torah, or the joyous Good News of the Gospels, the scripture in this and every holy book similarly compell readers to accept details as full narratives, or as confirmed, structured thought well beyond challenge or alternate understanding. The Torah claims a Messiah's arrival is yet pending. The New Testament says God, i.e., Yahway, Jehovah, Christ, Holy Spirit - sent his Jewish Son to die on a cross for the sins of man, thereby redeeming humanity for all of eternity. Neither story persuades me at all. Both belief systems stretch reality beyond rational possibility or anything plausible, desirable, or with arguably noble motives. I could never believe an allegedly...

It's occasionally necessary, definitely universal in nature and function, and it has its practical purpose. It's how we human types learn anything and everything. However, we can also resist the knee-jerk tendency of comparing, and that's what it is, a habit learned very early in life. I also struggle with it on occasion, like thinking too much on a topic, overanalysing till the cows come home. Usually, our errant valuing is actually more like apples and oranges, so that comparing becomes a pointless exercise of mental flogging that can become negative or dogmatic.  Instead, we can simply see, know, and accept differences without the constant comparing and contrasting that gobbles up so much of our time.

Whether it is the Bible or another book of faith or any work of self-expression, art, and study, it is the resonance that matters.  Sometimes, it really does happen, and it's happened to me, although it is very rare. There is no clear explanation, only hints and clues. The mechanisms of inspiration are not fully known, nor is there a charted path to understanding - it's all discovery. You start out reading a book, a certain book, and there is a transformation, page by page, a journey both natural and new.  Then, by the final chapters, you are no longer exactly who you were before. All thru some strange magic of conscious thought, evolution, words and ideas, and the crystal clarity of brilliant composition. Siddhartha is about the Buddha. His birth name was Siddhartha Gautama, and Hesse's timeless novel chronicles the panoramic inner journey to personal enlightenment.  Certain experiences can be life-changing or have inexplicable influence for a myriad of reasons. I starte...