Is there a limit?

Do you believe there is an absolute truth, some idea or concept that will always stand? I believe there is such thing, an immutable and everlasting truth on which all the momentaneous things subsist. I think, however, that we can never know it.* We must, though, keep on searching for it and, in fact, I even made a motto for myself that anything meaningful and worthy fighting for should be related to it. Recently an episode has made me reconsider how much I actually value the quest for true answers.

Most of us have passed through moments where people begin arguing about what we believe is true. Many of us, however, few uneasy, and are always trying to avoid it, certainly because we are not well grounded and fear the arguments may destroy our comfort and peace. Different from most people, I could not accept to be grounded on thin air, so I have myself doubted everything I've been taught, so no one would be able to say I was eluded.

This week, a friend of mine, who has been building his beliefs on very strong ground, with much study and reasoning, began arguing me about some ideas. I have to confess I felt uneasy, I began thinking of all the moments I had passed in the past considering such things and how I reached a point where I honestly just wanted to take it for granted and go onto other issues. Unfortunately, if this is the recipe for alienation, on the other hand we will never stop facing new arguments and, therefore, we will eternally be fools. Is it different if you are a fool level 9 or 10 in a scale going up to a billion? Certainly it is essential to have people around pushing you higher by such questioning, but is there a limit, is it worth the try?

This process of search for truth means you will continually criticize every idea you build, much like the dialectic method of Socrates, where you can never accept you know something, but enter this cycle of destruction-construction that leads you to a higher level of understanding. In fact, it is interesting how this evolution pattern repeats itself in reality.

In swimming and weight lifting (about which I can speak) we pass through long hours of workout, 'destroying' fibers of our muscles, then we get a good rest and nutrition in order to make it grow in quality and size. The sleeping and eating without exercises won't bring good results, nor the opposite. It is by intensifying this cycle, doing all of it more and better, that you will get where you want. The same is in economy, where by raising the flow of selling and buying products you produce greater wealth. This concept show us the government shouldn't be worried about decreasing imports, but focusing more on stimulating exports, that is, balancing the opposite forces in a higher level. (I don't ignore the other more complex factors, but this is certainly an underlying principle)

Alright, so, when will we stop this process? Some have argued that the Allegory of the Cave would be more complete if there were various caves, in an eternal loop, and just as we leave one and start enjoying the sun, we find that the figures we see still are a mere shadow of an even greater reality outside. But the question remains, if there will always be a better light outside, when will we stop and start enjoying the shadows playing on the wall?

*I personally believe that absolute truth can only be known if it decides to reveal itself to us, and it has amazingly done it by its personification in Jesus Christ, who leads us to a deeper and unexplainable experience with truth.

Is there a limit?

Reading and learning

I have been for long wondering about the effectiveness of my reading. Why am I reading so much just to a little later find out that most of that has not really entered my mind? Well, if books, articles, newspapers, and so on are more than mere entertainment and a moment of pleasure, I would expect for them to form a sort of knowledge storage that would help me on every area of my life. But how to make that effective and efficient?

Something recently brought this up again and I believe I may be getting close to a final opinion.

I had a presentation to make on my New Product Development class about a scientific paper on Platform management and I decided to make a fine one. I had about two weeks, so I began to read all I could about the issue. I read two other articles, an entire book by the paper's author and made a scheme on power point to make sure all the idea was connected. At the day of my class, I got a bit nervous, but there was enough baggage on my mind to go around and do a good job. So it was, the teacher liked it and I (hopefully) will get a good grade.

What I didn't say is that actually there was a team presenting. I did all this job but the material used to present was built by parts. I used my scheme to build the part assigned to me and, when I saw my colleague's part, I was thrilled by how he had interpreted so well the principles guiding the platform idea. I was sure he had not read the book, nor the other articles, and I don't believe he's so much smarter than me. What allowed him to get to the same results by reading only about 20 pages when I had read more than two hundred?

To improve the effectiveness of my readings I had been making schemes, diagrams, and summaries (which drove me to join Henne on his blog http://leiturasinteligentes.blogspot.com/). However, this last experience made me add another powerful tool. After the presentation I went back to the paper and began to reread it to see if I could find where my colleague saw all the things I had taken so much to realize. I saw then that everything I needed was in that article, either scattered or superficially explained. Only one thing could explain it: reflecting time.

It may sound logical, but many people think that a person is more cult if he simply reads more. I have come to disagree with this idea a time ago (and I have even reached the point of reading two books a day for a whole year), and this last experience just proved it. I'll lay some points: the information era brought us access to thousands of books, but we simply can't read all of them. It is amazing how information is repeated in all conversations and writings. In fact, a teacher of mine used to say only God has actually created anything, we all imitate. And, after all, people today are not as wise as the people of the enlightenment age or even the Greek philosophers.

For this, I have decided that more than reading, I must let information be transformed into knowledge and I'll accomplish this through reflecting, discussing, and even sleeping. This all means simply one thing: time.

Well,

I've just started this new media for my thoughts, there's no special purpose on it, just want to practice the ability of expressing my inner thoughts and views of the world around...maybe someone will get interested...let us see!