Subjectivity

As salaam alaikum,

I read something earlier today that was disorienting to me. It was the good type of disorienting, though, the type of disorienting that makes you think.

And question where you are, and if where you are is truly where you need to be.

I'm not sure. But it led me to think about the balance between life, objectively and subjectively. Those of us with a religious or spiritual leanings believe that there is Truth, and it is objective, and we all aspire to do our best to approximate that Truth.

Some of the details of how we get there are subjective. To believe that there is no subjectivity in the living of life and the approximation of Truth is oversimplifying faith and life. There are many ways to God, some more meritorious than others, a measure which we will never know.

The hard part of life as a believer is balancing the objective with the subjective. The absolute with the variable. If y = mx + b, and x is time and y is the approximation of the Truth, b of course being constant, how much of how we should live our lives is m and how much is b? How much of the Straight Way is constant and how much of it varies with time?

Life as a believer is a lot of balancing the subjective correctly with the objective. The middle path is hard because there's no obvious middle, no obvious balance. One cannot approach the objective without balancing somewhat their subjective, or else they'll find themselves overstepping limits, out of bounds, even to the right, conservative side of things.

Wouldn't it be easier if we could approximate the Truth, the objective, without having to worry about the pesky subjective? But this is how we were created, with the subjectivity of life to face. This is part of our purpose.

Conspicuously, balancing the subjective is part of our objective as believers.

The other side is, of course, not believing in the objective. That there is no objective to life. Just the subjective. With no objective, there's no need to balance.

And as disorienting as I am with questioning if I'm picturing life too subjectively and I need to bring more objective into my life...more disorienting to me would be life with no objective.

More disorienting to me are those who are hostile to those who believe the way they don't believe. Why get so upset?

Because of our different balances of subjectivity and objectivity, we live in different worlds. Don't sweat it, it will not make sense!

Unless, of course, you envisioned the balance of subjectivity and objectivity as a three dimensional scale with multi-colored blocks falling onto the scale like tetras pieces, stacking up, creating a four-dimensional aspect of balance (height, width, length and weight), therefore two balanced people may not have the same elements of balance...not the same subjectives or objectives...

If you saw that, then we do live in the same reality, so you should get angry at me for not believing as you do. It's so self-evident to you, it should also be to me, after all.

Though, I must admit, I am bending more towards subjectivity. I think the Truth is so heavy that we can afford more subjectives than many of us allow ourselves. Maybe.

Or maybe my red is your brown and we'll just never know.