An opinion is a value judgment we place on the perspective of truth that we hold. Not only do all of us have varying value systems, but the underlining truth that we sometimes don’t even see can be very different. The word “truth” has associated with it a singular reality in our universe. We don’t see two opposite truths existing in the same (our) universe. That’s the reason I love Star Trek so much. It helps us understand that an n-dimensional, non-linear universe can exist. For the skeptical, half of “Star Trek” science-fiction has come to reality over its forty-year life.
We often forget sometimes that what we are calling the truth is actually an opinion. A remedial example is when someone asks us if we saw a particular movie. We say, “No, never.” The other person says we did and we have an argument. They then jog our memory and suddenly we remember. Did we state the truth or a time-sensitive opinion? After all, we weren’t intentionally telling a “lie.”
Because our opinions are dynamic over our lifetime, we tend to think opinions that are static are actually truths. Who said that a static opinion is the truth? Just because we never mature out of a particular paradigm of thought, doesn’t mean that that’s the truth. The earth being flat was the truth for many people’s lifetimes - or so they thought. We now know that that perspective was only a static opinion.
Opinions are not bad for they do help us discover the truth, if there is one. They help us share different perspectives and focuses. They allow us to be with the truth in a particular way and experience that way of being. Only when we become righteous about it do we fall in the trap of not experiencing our universe for what it has to offer us. St. Thomas Aquinas, theologian and philosopher, said, “We must love them both - those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject. For both have labored in the search for truth, and both have helped us in the finding of it.”
Whenever we think we have found the truth, let us ask ourselves how it came. Asking will let us be aware that the truth is an opinion and will thus lead us to a greater truth. Otherwise, we only allow higher powers to control the so-called truth or our opinions. As Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche said, “All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power, and not truth.” Let our power be our wisdom from this distinction.
Let's love the world together...
Love,
Danish Ahmed, blind visionary
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