CHASING DOWN THE MUSE:Looking for truth in opinion

Who’s got an opinion?

Gee whiz. I saw all of you raise your hands. And not one of you was shy.

Of course we have opinions. It’s part of our hard wiring. We have opinions about our friends, our kids, the weather, the war, foreign countries and our own government. We have opinions about music, books, films and art. And for the most part, we are darn sure that we are right.

We know what is good and what is bad. It took a great deal of time to come to our current understanding, and unless someone can pry us free with revelatory information, we’re likely to hold our ground and the concomitant affirmation of ourselves.

How many of us are sure we know what is wrong with one of our friends? Sure that the way they are doing something ? their work or relationship ? could be so much better if they would just ... what? Be more like we think they should be. They could be happier, wealthier, thinner, more content ? if only they’d ? match our belief system.

What if everything that we believed was based on a lie? What if some core component of our individual thought process had been incorrectly programmed, not unlike a computer run amok? What if we had accepted a key element of our understanding ? a crucial piece of information ? as a singular truth when, in fact, it was a variable.

Take religion. The total number of religious systems practiced on our planet number around 4,200, with 98% of the population adhering to the tenants of around 22, according to the Web site www.adherents.com.

Christianity and Islam hold the largest number of followers. Others include Hinduism, Buddhism, Chinese traditionalism, primal-indigenous, Sikhism, Judaism and nonreligious organizations.

In each instance, there is a framework for belief. Each believes that they, and they alone, hold the key to the kingdom. They marginalize those who do not follow their faith.

As to the mind of the factionalized and radicalized Muslims who don cloaks of the terrorist, wire bombs to their bodies and wander into cafes and train stations to murder innocent people, I will never understand. My intellect may catch a fleeting glimpse of the process that drives them, but my heart will never accept their actions.

I have an opinion, and, like most of us in the Western world, I treasure the freedoms with which I am able to discourse and argue to arrive at my conclusions. I ponder with friends the political nature of red vs. blue or left vs. right and wonder how our categorizations limit the foundation of our conversation. How can we say we truly understand anything once we have attached

a label to a person or situation?

Our earliest opinions come from our families. We learn to smile in order to obtain affection and attention. We learn that bad behavior will result in isolation and punishment. We absorb the opinions of our early caretakers and spend the rest of our lives trying to find our true selves.

Our deepest hiccup is power of the media to affect our decisions of taste and decorum. We look to the pundits of publishing to determine what is good to wear, to eat, and where to travel. Media tell us who are the good guys ? corporate America. Media tells us who are the bad guys ? corporate America.

Is it possible to hold an original thought?

Every day, papers and magazines and websites are filled with op-ed pages. Some are subscription, i.e., we pay to hear the thoughts of others. We filter their information through our collective “gills’” to determine where they stand within our own belief system. If an opinion matches ours, we applaud them. If their words or speech antagonize us, we consider their acts a personal transgression.

With so many divergent issues, how do we hold ourselves as a community? Split by issues such as immigration, health insurance, parking lots and mansionization, how can we learn to be more receptive to points of view that are different from our own?

We are the greatest when we are involved in learning, in forwarding the collective consciousness of our species. While our differences divide us, it is my hope that they can also be our greatest asset. The truth of an argument usually lies somewhere in the middle.

My goal is simple: to question my own opinions. In doing so, I hope to recognize when I am categorizing or marginalizing based on a preconceived idea and to open my mind at that juncture. I’d like to see what deeper truths lie on the other side of my mind.