A few days ago I posted this nice quote from Helen Keller, "Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light." A reader insightfully pointed out the importance of contexts. This quote is a powerful example of a thought capable of a multitude of meanings. Our minds are a curious thing. As I read this quote my mind easily understood the simile of darkness as relating to struggles and difficulties. Once I bonded with this meaning the thinking stopped. I have not read the context of this one line thought from Helen Keller. I do not know with certainty the fuller meaning she was trying to convey. In the context of her life and character, I believe it was not an effort to say, “It is better to act unsavory with a friend than to be virtuous alone.” Yet the words alone dancing on our lighted screens could be easily deciphered as such. This post of mine is not an effort to find the true intention of what Helen Keller was attempting to convey with her words but to remind us of the power of our minds to add meaning and exactness to fragments of information. A single quote should never be taken as a shining truth without deeper examination and inspection. A simple quote can easily be bent and shaped to fit our already existing framework of how we see the world. The quote can also be easily manipulated to take on ideas which are obviously false and we can easily dismiss the quote as non-sense. The idea of this facebook page is not to present a list of eternal truths which will enhance a reader’s life. I hope that somehow in the posts my friends will be encouraged to challenge some of their old beliefs, view the world from a different perspective, and in the end be benefited from the exercises of the mind which this site provides rather than simply discovering a simple map to happiness. Life in many ways is chaotic. There are so much information being thrown at our senses from a never ending stream of experience. To our left a man is preaching, “This is the meaning of life.” To the left we hear the words from another bidding us, “NO that is not it, this is what you need to do.” It is easy to be tossed and turned in this sea of certainty which each self-proclaimed leader beckons we all must follow. Khalil Gibran succinctly stated this idea in these words, “The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.” It is my hope that as we read through a simple quote from this or any other facebook page that we do not read with an eye which is looking for exactness but with openness willing to find a piece of wisdom which can lead us to greater understanding. Like always, shared with love, Troy Flourishing Life Society
Posted on: Tue, 30 Jul 2013 00:00:00 +0000