by Janet Levine
For some time now—maybe months, maybe years, time really does fly when you---I’ve been hearing the This I Believe essays on NPR. I’ve long known that religiously I’m pretty much a live and let live non-believer. That is, I don’t much believe, but it’s okay with me if you do. Mainly, I don’t want to argue about it. What I didn’t realize, until I was listening to This I Believe, is that I’m pretty much that way about everything.
I wanted to write a This I Believe essay. But I couldn’t figure out what I believe. At first I thought about randomness. Then I realized that I don’t particularly believe in it, I just accept that it happens. Or that, maybe, there is a causal reason. So I believe in acceptance, except I think that I am in charge of most of my own life. I won’t ever go quietly into any day or night. In short, I’ll accept what suits me. And reject everything else.
Does that mean I believe in self-determination? Yes, to the degree that we can determine. Sometimes there is that randomness. Or other’s self-determination which impedes your own.
And then there’s…but, wait. On the other hand. But perhaps. Then again. And so forth.
A friend tells me she believes in the power of yes. I like that. But I’m not sure I believe in it. I’m not sure I can commit to something so concrete, any more than I could commit to any other ideology. And then it hits me.
I believe in But. And Maybe. And even Perhaps.
Then again, it’s possible that I don’t.
2 comments:
My, you think BIG. I believe that eating a fresh, dead ripe peach from a tree in Michigan last summer was really satisfying.
I believe that this long-time urban dweller has never heard the term "dead ripe" before now. I had to go look it up.
That aside, I do have some concrete beliefs and faith that I have often had to fall back on in my life; and whatever that somewhat undefinable spiritual foundation is, in my experience its solid as a rock. But that's something for another essay.
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