People I Owe

I have meant to write for a while now (of course), but this has been on my mind since shortly after my previous post -- esp. related to the "update."
I owe a lot to my friends.

I am thankful for those people in my life who have known me for a long time and, whether for that reason or some other, grant me a large portion of grace.  When I say or do something dumb, they are the ones who say, by word or by deed, or both, "I'm sure you didn't mean [that], do you want another try?"  Whether that is some stupid thing I did, or a poor choice of words -- and, sometimes, very poor.
I would like to believe that, sometimes, it's because the person knows, or believes, or would like to hope, that because I'm smarter than I appear and, given a chance, I can prove it.
But, if I'm honest, at least part of the reason for friends who give me the benefit of the doubt is that people like that are just wonderful, kind, forgiving, people.

"A friend is someone who, when you make a fool of yourself, doesn't think it's a permanent job."

So, to the one who helped me refine what I write here, by asking good, insightful, honest questions,
to those who can sit with my over lunch and put up with meanderings, and sometimes incoherent mutterings, to the guy who listens me say some completely off the wall statements, knowing or not that I actually do have some idea in my head, that might or might not be worth it -- if you recognize yourself in those descriptions or not, if you are my friend, and you've ever had to think, "what in the heck does he mean by that?"  And you still put up with me:

Thank you.

What I've learned

Updated Friday 11 April 2014: Trying to be more clear

I started with an "old" thought.  Someone "challenged" me, quite a while ago now, to defend something I believe without reference to secondary sources.  (That's a bit abstract, and it's doubtful that the person who asked the question would even recognize it as I state it -- maybe, maybe not).

I spent some time thinking about it again recently, and I came to a conclusion: I am not sure I can say a lot about anything without "secondary sources."  If, by that, you mean, knowing only first-hand, and without reference to (potentially biased) intermediaries -- without saying anything on the authority of someone else, logically independent information, free of all bias and interpretation.

Most of my knowledge -- well, at least a great deal of it, comes from teachers, books by authors I trust, experience validated by other people, or just the "say so" of the general population, even generally received tradition.

For that matter, most of what I think, or believe, is of the nature that I received the information "second-hand."  (What would it mean, for example, to base all my knowledge of a foreign language or, more importantly, ancient Latin, on only "primary" knowledge?)

A lot of what I know is due to an external authority, and not directly learned from the "source" -- whatever that means.  The fact of the matter is that is not necessarily a bad thing.

But there is a long historical, philosophical tradition of trying to establish a bias-free compilation of all knowledge: it's called the Enlightenment, or Rationalism.

In broad, categorical, historical terms, the Enlightenment project of establishing an objective, pure knowledge has been demolished.  The idea of knowing separate from any subjective context is fatuous, and futile.  This is one of the main, positive results of post-modernism -- yes, I said "positive."  Although, in excess, it leads to nihilism, the reaction against pure objectivism is a good thing, in my opinion.

That leads to the question of how certain I am of what I believe, and what I think I know, and what is essential, crucial and what there is to be dogmatic about. (Or, "about which to be dogmatic," if you want to avoid ending a sentence with a preposition.)

I don't think it's as difficult as all that, though I understand that it is tough for someone who may've been misled to "trust" -- "once bit, twice shy," as the saying goes.

For that matter, I recently was forced to consider some things I am uncertain about in a new light, given that I've rejected an old "authority," and am wondering with what to replace it.  

This conversation will soon turn religious, but also apologetic in nature.  I'm just posting the beginnings of my train of thought.  I'd love to hear responses from anyone reading this.

Continuation: more to come, with elaboration, and specific examples coming soon.