Letting Go of All you Know

Letting go of all you know when something comes in to change everything, what does that mean to you? Can you embrace it, allow everything to change in an instant? Is it scary for you? How do you face this?

This keeps coming up wherever I go, so I thought I'd ask the question. Do you let go of all you know when something comes in to change it all? Or do you reject it and hold on to what you know to be true?

So many younger people think that they have life all figured out just because they managed to start a family and get a good job. When things don't go to plan as they get older, these people become bitter, angry, and resentful at the world. They think "I did everything that I was supposed to do when I was younger, so it can't be my fault! Fuck the world." No matter what path we set off on, we are promised nothing and we could lose it all at any time. There is no right or wrong way to live.

I've never had anything shake up my world because I've never had much of a world to shake up. It's just kind of how things panned out for me so far. I didn't plan to live this way, I always intended to have some sort of career but nothing I tried ever panned out. My attempted careers all ended before they began. I'm not bitter or resentful at the world because of this though, at least not anymore. I did get discouraged and gave up long ago because of this, but that is nobody's fault but my own. I consider all of my "knowledge" to be tentative. I don't take anything for granted anymore. I know that anything could change in an instant. Thanks to my parents, so far my basic survival needs have never been threatened, but of course that will change someday.

It's like I've said a couple days ago:
If something defies my current understanding, I examine it and wonder if it could somehow be wrong, or that I was mistaken, but even if it seems like that could be so, I will give it some weight. That weight is now on the opposite side of the scale. Now that particular belief is essentially going to be 'under fire' for a while; I will be on the look out for any more relevant information to place on either side of the scale: conversations, debates, research, or just incidental information encountered, which I will be sensitive to now that it has been given more conscious focus. Many times the scale ends up tipping in favor of something new. Other times I may simply not want to take a position; the evidence is indecisive.

It's quite fine to learn something new and discard old understandings. Just so long as I have a nice, sturdy, internally consistent replacement for the old, there won't be much in terms of anxiety. It's the need of a flesh-out understanding which feels probable more than any particular belief set.

To let go is devine....to hold on is sublime

The struggle between the two lingers to this day

True Captain. Nice observation.