Understanding what makes me tick is pretty simple: I want to be right. Some people misunderstand this motivation and think of what I do as a type of sophistry--that I want people to think that I am right (which is a common human motivation, and thus certainly a part of my own). However, I'm much more concerned that I might be truly wrong than I am that someone might think that I'm right. Perhaps this might be better understood if I said that I hate being wrong--but that's not quite as true as the fact that I want to know the Truth.
Because I want to know the Truth, and be correct in my beliefs about what is true, I have a difficult time with those people who spread mistruths, disinformation, and outright lies. The more flagrantly a person disparages the Truth, the greater my frustration with them grows. I get particularly angry with those try to hide their falsehoods behind ideas like moral relativism. Although it is True that our perceptions influence what we can understand about Truth, and thus we only comprehend the corner of reality that we inhabit, there are still objective Truths in our universe--even if they are beyond our ability to comprehend them. People who use this concept to distort the truth by claiming to "control the story" are thus some of the most dangerous people in our world.
The problem is that everyone does this to some degree. We all try to bend reality to fit the way we believe or (more often) fear the world to be. I have certainly fallen for this more than once--that I will believe the version that I prefer to be true than the one that is True. Each time I discover this, I am filled with embarrassment and self-loathing. As the years and decades have passed, I have compounded my efforts to make certain that the Truth I believe is not just the truth that I desire or fear.
In the end, I realize that there is so much that I do not know--and possibly cannot know in this life. Perhaps Socrates was right in believing that the only true wisdom comes from realizing that we know nothing. Still, I want to be right and do right as best as I can.
Because I want to know the Truth, and be correct in my beliefs about what is true, I have a difficult time with those people who spread mistruths, disinformation, and outright lies. The more flagrantly a person disparages the Truth, the greater my frustration with them grows. I get particularly angry with those try to hide their falsehoods behind ideas like moral relativism. Although it is True that our perceptions influence what we can understand about Truth, and thus we only comprehend the corner of reality that we inhabit, there are still objective Truths in our universe--even if they are beyond our ability to comprehend them. People who use this concept to distort the truth by claiming to "control the story" are thus some of the most dangerous people in our world.
The problem is that everyone does this to some degree. We all try to bend reality to fit the way we believe or (more often) fear the world to be. I have certainly fallen for this more than once--that I will believe the version that I prefer to be true than the one that is True. Each time I discover this, I am filled with embarrassment and self-loathing. As the years and decades have passed, I have compounded my efforts to make certain that the Truth I believe is not just the truth that I desire or fear.
In the end, I realize that there is so much that I do not know--and possibly cannot know in this life. Perhaps Socrates was right in believing that the only true wisdom comes from realizing that we know nothing. Still, I want to be right and do right as best as I can.
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