Take your time
By Bobby Neal Winters
“What is the Truth?”
You might recognize that as being a quote from the Bible. If you are a New Testament scholar, you will recognize the question as coming from Pilate.
Pilate, being an administrator, needed to have information to base his decisions on. But sometimes (often? frequently? most of the time?) when a decision is made which requires action, it is less about the truth and more about the consequences of the action that is taken or the lack of action.
Pilate chose his action, and, at least according to some sermons I’ve heard, is now continually washing his hands while being eaten by maggots and being roasted in a lake of fire.
Pilate was working under political pressure, within a narrow window of time, and with a constrained stream of information.
Things have changed a little in the intervening millenia. We have more “information” than Pilate.
Not only do we have information about that world coming at us through our eyes, through our ears, through our noses, and through our skin. We also have newspapers, radio, television, and the Internet. Within the Internet, there are various news sites that have varying degrees of legitimacy for the entire spectrum of views on every subject.
Then there is their propagation through social media. In the time of Pilate social media was the group of men drinking tea at the city gate. Now it is coming at us through all our electronic devices and is curated for us.
This last bit is important. It is very easy to get swept into a corner in social media where the Algorithm (peace be unto it) will bring you things it thinks will make you happy. If you believe in Bigfoot, eat Mexican food, and like limes, it will bring you stories about Sasquatl drinking margaritas in Cancun.
Soon that is the only thing you will be getting. It’s the only sort of information you will be exposed to. You will be--and perhaps are already--trapped with your own worse version of yourself.
Now I am not saying there is no truth. There is a real world and we do live in it, but we are living in that warehouse at the end of “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” you get what I am saying?
That is one level of the world.
There is another level of the world. I mentioned that when I talked about decisions. We often make decisions in the light of the information we receive. You can think of it as “the world of business”, “the world of administration”, or “the world of living.”
In this world, you look at the information. You make a good faith effort to understand the truth. You’d really like to know what it is. (And maybe not. There are some truths I know now that I wish that I didn’t. And I am not going to tell you.) But regardless of what the truth is you have to take or--and this is important--not take an action.
One simple technique that I have been taught is using two dimensions to make decisions. Along one axis we can classify decisions as being “urgent” or “not urgent.” On an orthogonal axis we can classify them as being “important” or “unimportant.” Not everything that is urgent is important and not everything important is urgent.
The ice cream truck coming down the street is urgent but not important. The Ambulance coming is urgent and important.
There are people who will try to force you to make a decision without giving it adequate thought by trying to make you believe it is urgent.
Here is when you really need to exercise agency. Can it wait a minute? If not, is there something on fire? Can you smell the smoke?
Can it wait ten minutes? Is someone turning blue in front of you?
Can it wait an hour? Is there blood coming out on the floor?
Can it wait a week? Can it wait a month?
How hard are the people wanting you to make a quick decision trying to manipulate you? Are they trying to imply you are stupid by not acting quickly?
We started talking about Pilate. Let’s end by talking about Thomas. Everyone else had hopped right on board. “Jesus had risen from the grave!” They were plainly crazy. Thomas insisted on proof. He had to touch the wounds with his own hands.
He was given the time and he was not rushed.
True, Thomas is not pictured as being the sharpest tool in the shed, but so what? So-called smart people are often the first to jump on the band wagon whether it is going in the right direction or not.
So, what is the truth? The answer is, take your time and find out.
Bobby Winters, a native of Harden City, Oklahoma, blogs at redneckmath.blogspot.com and okieinexile.blogspot.com. He invites you to “like” the National Association of Lawn Mowers on Facebook. Search for him by name on YouTube.