RE: The truth of "convention" and other kaleidoscopic colors
alaind...@comcast.net
We are part of a kaleidoscope. A jumble of colors coming from broken glass that come alive in beauty at the end of a dark tube. Our world is ever-changing. Nothing is ever or will ever be the same again. With every turn everything changes. After a hunt the forest is still the forest but it is no longer the same forest. Because the spotted doe is no longer in it. She’s been shot and gutted. We change as the world around us changes. We don’t stand still. The world does not stand still. It goes from a placid pond that mirrors every tree and every cloud into pure forms. Then with increasing winds, into rippled forms and into frenzied froth.
Where is my world? Where is my home? Where am I? I recognize nothing as the froth hurls needles of soft glass into my eyes. Keep them shut. Let nothing in. Bring nothing out. The world can’t hear you. The din from the wind is too loud. And from an eternal distance a friend’s voice is heard. It comes from before real time existed. When we lived in play time. When the sunset opened myriad passages into strange worlds with strange creatures doing strange things. Which passage do I take? Into which world will I take refuge tonight?
The friend’s voice gets louder and begins to intrude and forces me to open my eyes. I look for the familiar face and it isn’t there. Nowhere in that gale-driven world of wind and rain and froth. The wind stings my eyes so I shut them again. “Where are you? Which passage do I take”? Besides the force of the gale and the noise of the wind through the trees and the leaves, nothing. No response. “Where are you? Which passage do I take” I ask again, this time more uncertain about myself.
Were they real? Is my friend real? Or is it a mere convention? Is he a mere agreement about a world of beliefs that was the doorway to one of those childhood passages? “Are you real or are you just a convention” I scream to the disembodied voice that I heard above the noise of the storm. “I am a real convention. I am your beliefs, your God and your dreams . We lived in the same world. We went through the same passage down the same hole and into the same strange existence. We played with the same strange creatures.”
“How can you be real if you are just a convention? A convention is a mutually accepted belief that something is real. A convention is not about something real. It is about something we want to… we agree to be real”. “Ahhh yes. You were always the one who questioned everything. You were the one who believed in everything because you believed in nothing. You questioned in order to disprove. In order to make your world smaller as your reality shrunk. Tell me how small has our world become”?
“It has shrunk. I am surrounded by nothing. By ghosts of ideas that once inhabited my mind as giant figures. As leaden gray covers the sky. As winds blow and bring everything into a frothy boil. Then stops. When I open my eyes, there are mere wisps of clouds in the sky. The wind has died and there is only silence. My world is different. Without moving a muscle I entered a door and went down a passage. Everything is different. Birds are singing all around me. The pond is a mirror that reflects every leaf of every tree and every wisp in the sky and every bird in flight.”
“Where are the fiery dragons the gale promised to bring? I was determined to slay them when I heard my friend’s voice. When he talked to me about ‘convention’. I looked for him because I did not understand”.
Another voice spoke to me. It was a parent’s voice. Perhaps mine or perhaps another’s parent. “You are in ‘convention’. When you want calm and peace go into convention. Go into your childhood beliefs where everything was simple and everything was true according to convention. It is only in convention where you find absolute truth. Where you and those around you can agree to agree about what is true. You need to go inside a passageway and peek. See who inhabits that world? See first who you will convene with and agree on what is true. Do you like them?”
If you don’t then know that no agreement, no convention with these people can bring you peace. Convention is when you and them agree on a body of truths. Once you agree, then those truths are absolute. Those friends are eternal. You can disagree with them on things that lay outside of what you agreed in your ‘convention-of-truth’. Such disagreements are acceptable and normal. They will cast no danger upon you or them because what you have mutually agreed as true is enough of an anchor to resist any storm.
Absolute certainty is important. There are absolute certainties in life. Birth and death are two examples. But almost everything else that is within the realm of mind is uncertain. We can bring such uncertainties into the realm of “absolute truths” only by convention… by agreement. By agreeing that “we hold these truths to be self-evident…” even when not one of them was considered self-evident until we agreed to do so. That is “convention”. They are brought into the realm of absolutes for purposes that have to do with debates about civil society.
We will not question these truths because even if they are not totally logically absolute, from this moment on in our civil discussions, that is how we will treat them. We do the same to concepts about God. The resurrection and the divinity of Christ are considered “absolute truths” by most Christians despite the fact they are not really absolute truths outside our religious group’s conventions.
“So who are you?” I ask the voice. “Are you my parent or my parent’s parent? How do you know so much about me? Do you come from the placid pond or are you a child of the gale that brought the world into frenzied froth? I am both. That’s why I seem so familiar to you. I am your parent and your parent’s parent. The reason we know you is because we are you. We are the placid pond and we are the gale. We are the reflection of the trees, the clouds and the birds as well as the broken forms when the first gusts of wind started to ripple the surface. We are the gale and the froth and the mud beneath the surface kicked up by the wind and the waves.
Look around you and find those with whom you can agree. Those with whom you can create conventions of absolute truths. But don’t ever leave your sword at home. Bring it with you. Have it with you all the time. Keep it sheathed. But don’t hesitate to unsheathe it when someone tries to force you into submission to false truths you cannot agree to by proof or by convention. Be always a warrior for truth. But be careful. Never allow for victory to be your goal. The only valid goal is the truth that the gale did not bring when he did not blow the dragon before you. There is much truth in dragons. As much absolute truth in death as there is in birth
All comes from that kaleidoscope. That play of colors at the end of the dark tube. An infinity of shapes and colors that change with the slightest movement. A child’s toy that when I was a child, I would say to myself: “This is what God looks like”. I no longer am a child. But looking back at that child, I find it difficult to argue with him and with his view of what God looks like.
Love to all,
Danding
A M Gonzalez
At the core of this destruction is the loss of faith in a Creator or higher moral order. Without this guiding truth, people become easy targets for lies dressed as progress.
One of the most damaging attacks under this false freedom is on the family and the natural meaning of man and woman. The clear ideas of manhood and womanhood are under constant attack. Allowing children and even the elderly to change their sex does not free anyone; it destroys identity and causes confusion about what it means to be a man or a woman.
These so called freedoms have caused real harm.
Divorce has climbed to alarming levels, breaking families apart. Their children suffer emotional wounds and financial hardship. They struggle at school, suffer mental health issues and suicide rise. Broken families breed loneliness, selfishness and pain.
Single parent families often live in poverty and face uncertainty. They rely heavily on government aid, which puts strain on society. Children in these situations often feel abandoned and isolated.
More people are living alone or delaying marriage. This weakens community ties and increases loneliness. Isolation leads to selfishness and mental health crises, including rising suicides.
Work demands and digital distractions steal family time and weaken emotional connections. Social media replaces real relationships with shallow contact, deepening isolation.
Changing gender roles disrupt family stability and cause confusion and conflict inside homes.
Economic pressures and heavy debt stop many young people from starting families. This deepens social alienation and hopelessness.
The acceptance of abortion, test-tube babies, and euthanasia changes how society values life and family. Life becomes a choice or product rather than a sacred gift, reducing respect and empathy.
Raising children with two fathers or two mothers disrupts natural male and female roles. Children lose the clear mother and father figures needed for healthy emotional and social growth. Without male and female role models, children risk confusion and weak identity.
All these breaks destroy the family, the foundation of society for thousands of years. Broken families make people lonelier, more selfish, and weaker. This loneliness and despair drive rising mental illness and suicide.
Even worse, this social decay creates a new class that depends fully on the government for everything. These people lose their drive, creativity, and desire to excel. Instead of freedom, they become servants of the state, weakening society’s core.
Behind all this rot are corrupt politicians, bought and controlled by powerful elites. These rotten leaders push these destructive social agendas not out of care for the people but for power and gain. They break down families and freedoms to build their control, using lies and media manipulation to fool the public.
True freedom comes only through faith and belief in unchanging truths and a moral order that give life meaning. This foundation strengthens people to resist lies and control.
In the end, destroying family and natural values is not progress, it is slavery in disguise. It traps us in lies, isolation, and dependence. Only by returning to faith, truth, and natural order can we rebuild real community, care for one another, and end the epidemic of loneliness and despair