Consistency is foolish

Today I got an email from a man who had finished reading my first book and wondered if I was “full of self-deluding crap." He asked me, “Would you presently like to make any ‘corrections’ or ‘retractions’ from what you wrote and published about ten years ago?”

Why, of course I would. I entirely agree that I’m full of self-deluding crap now, but I like to believe that I was even fuller a decade previous. So this diminution in B.S., no matter how small it might be, has produced a corresponding change in how I view lots of things.

The tone of my correspondent’s email message implies that changing one’s mind is a bad thing to do. Yet Ralph Waldo Emerson praised inconsistency in his classic essay on “Self-Reliance.” I re-read his words today:

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said today.

… The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your conformity explains nothing.

Now, naturally I don’t consider myself to be a “great” soul. But Emerson’s advice seems to be directed toward those who aspire to make their souls as expansive as possible, regardless how narrow is their current understanding of life’s deepest mysteries.

Every day I find myself changing. So in ten years I’ve changed a lot. I was asked by this man, “Do you now wish to step away from your advice that one ought ‘find’ their own ‘perfect master’ in pursuing mystical knowledge?” Yes. Sort of.

Presently I’m not sure whether a guru or master is necessary for making progress on a spiritual path. Before, I thought that having a teacher is as helpful in studying the nature of the world inside of us as it is in learning about the outside world.

It’s tough to learn physics by yourself. Getting instruction from a trained physicist makes more sense than trying to figure stuff out on your own. Whether this also is the case with mysticism has become an open question for me.

I’m less certain about many statements that I’ve made in the past. This includes my previously confident proclamation that having a guru is good. Thus I’ve rewritten my first book, “God’s Whisper, Creation’s Thunder” to make it more consistent with my current conceptions.

My book tried to relate the new physics with mysticism. I said that science is a collective pursuit of truth while spirituality is an individual effort toward the same end. Each is marked by continual changes in conclusions as new evidence and experiments throw fresh light on a subject.

When I re-read what I wrote many years ago, often I cringe. However, I believe that the cringing is a sign of growth, not of regression.

It’s a recognition that what I once thought was the end of the road turned out just to be a mile marker along the way. This is akin to the feeling I’d have if I had settled into a lawn chair to watch a fireworks show, waited all night for the heavens to light up, and then realized that I was still far from the fairgrounds.

In the morning I’d wake with an embarrassed smile, chuckling at my mistake. But I wouldn’t regret what I had done, for the doing had made perfect sense to me at the time. I’d simply fold my chair and head on up the road, hoping to find what I was looking for around another bend. I wouldn’t stay in the same place.

That would be foolish. I want to experience fireworks, not my own consistency.

Comments

[GM]

I like the analogy! :)