I’d like to get something straight before we go on any farther. I get a firm idea of what I’m being told, but other people reading the same words get another idea that is clearly different, and, to my mind, confused. Is it my job to rephrase your words to make them clearer in such cases, or is it every man for himself, interpreting them, or what? I mean, it’s one thing when I bring through something that is susceptible to more than one interpretation in my view, but I think it is quite another when it seems clear to me and is read differently by others. On the one hand we don’t need a pope. On the other hand we don’t want to be putting things to a vote. My question amounts to this: When I, as scribe, feel that others are misinterpreting what came to me essence to essence, what can we reliably do to clean up the confusion? If we say, “Ask you,” well, that just comes back in the same hole we went out. And of course, here I am, asking you.
And here – as, ironically, you well know – you see the dilemma faced by any people attempting to bring information through. Any body of information must be conveyed through human instruments. The transmission, the reception, the process of assimilation, the process of mutual understanding – all the steps in the process are subject to the difficulties of communication among people who are having to rely partly on sensory data, partly on communication mind-to-mind that does not depend on data, and partly on each mind’s prepared reception.
Oh, I understand the problem, all right! But what is the indicated solution?
If we understand you correctly (this is sarcasm, you understand), you are asking how you can overcome the difficulties that caused the Protestant revolution, the controversies over heresy before that, wars between different religions, hostility between religions and secular orientations, wars within the scientific and mental worlds between, again, orthodoxy and heresy –
I get the point. But in practical terms?
You know the answer. You quote it every so often.
“You do the best you can.”
What else is there? As misunderstandings arise, you clarify your prior statements. But process and result are two different things, in all forms of cooperative thought. You can do your best to clarify. You can’t depend upon others seeing it your way.
Seems to me we are providing people with a lot of opportunities to mislead themselves – and to be misled by others.
We are. That is true whenever one brings any information through. But the alternative is silence, and the corrective is always at hand: It is for each person to wrestle with the material and make of it what s/he can, remembering that vehemence is no proof of truth (and is often an indication of suppressed doubt) and that sincerity of purpose combined with humility will lead you right, over time.
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This is an edited excerpt from “Only Somewhat Real,” not yet published.