"Am I A Prisoner Of My Identity?" [Part 3]

Believing and knowing. The ability to distinguish these two is crucial if you don't want to be a prisoner of your identity. Please keep in mind that I am just a student of life which shares his thoughts. Let's take a deep dive once again!

What does it mean to believe?

Beliefs can be quite extreme in both good and bad ways. People can lose themselves completely in a belief, totally consumed. This can be comforting for someone because they feel safe, but it can be also a disturbing experience. Belief can cause losing self-control, and let one be controlled instead. Belief can lift people up and make people do good deeds, but unfortunately it’s also used to justify cruel acts. This makes me wonder: what does it mean to believe? 

For certain, believing is not knowing. Knowing is more certain than belief, and belief is uncertain. When I KNOW something, I don’t need to BELIEVE it because I KNOW it. Believing sounds more as being convinced of something, but that doesn’t mean that it’s certain. So, based on that - it looks like isn’t that hard to understand the difference between believing and knowing, and I think there’s nothing wrong with believing either. However, when one is unable to distinguish belief from certainty is where it gets freaky. I’ll get to that later. 

When I think about belief - to me, it means that I accept certain information without verifying if it’s certain or not. For example, if you tell me the story of your life and I choose to believe you on your word, it means that I accept the information you provided me with, without doing any research to verify if whatever you said is true or not. Unverified, it will remain uncertain to me. 

I see religion and philosophies just like that. It’s based on trust, not on certainty. If we believe something, we have faith in it, and I think we all have beliefs, right? I have my own beliefs as well! But I must admit that when I analyze my own beliefs, that I’m not the person anymore who I used to be. 

Now my beliefs are more based on knowledge, experience, what I’ve seen with my own eyes and what makes sense to me. When something remains uncertain yet, I must remain open to the fact that it might not be true what I’m believing. I have to stay flexible to a certain degree and I think that this is very important. 

Here's where the danger lies

There are many of us who are unable to be flexible when it comes to belief. That’s where the danger lies in my opinion. That’s where one becomes unable to distinguish belief from certainty. The source of this may vary. 

It can be social pressure, the need to feel accepted, to feel a sense of belonging. It can also be based on being a follower. If a big group of people have adopted a certain belief, it’s likely for someone else to believe that there’s probably some kind of truth in it regarding to what that group is believing. They might think that “Believing something is better than nothing”. 

Thinking this way means that it’s also a sense of comfort that one may seek and feel as a necessity. The thing is that when one of these scenarios happens, people are taking on that persona and they slowly BECOME that belief. When someone with another belief provide criticism on one’s belief, then the other person feels attacked because they have become one with what they believe in. They become un-open to look from another point of view and won’t accept anything else which isn’t in line with their belief. I think that’s why it’s important to stay flexible and to keep a degree of uncertainty in mind. 

What you believe, or what I believe, does not necessarily may be the truth. You know, life is mysterious and a lot of questions remain unanswered. Certain beliefs might provide you with what you can believe the answer might be, and while knowing that it’s uncertain, most of the time it feels better than having no answer at all. The only thing that I find important, is to keep that degree of uncertainty in mind. 

This also counts for people who, for example, don’t believe in let’s say God. Maybe there’s no proof of the existence of God, but can you prove that God doesn’t exist? Also not! Not with absolute certainty and that’s the freaky thing with belief. IT IS A BELIEF. When one believes that belief is something certain, then that person isn’t open anymore to other possibilities and truths. That’s that wall I’ve been talking about in the second part of this series. 

Rising above your beliefs

I have been breaking down that wall and I feel I should be constantly open to new points of view, new information and evidence, so basically allowing myself to change. I don’t believe I was born a certain way and I don’t believe that you are born a certain way. You’re not a born Republican, a born Atheist or a born Muslim or Christian or Buddhist of whatever it may be. You have been shaped into whatever it is you are identifying yourself with. You were born without believing anything, just pure. Overtime, your thoughts and beliefs have changed and like I said earlier, nothing wrong with that. However, it’s important to know that who you are, is not what you believe. 

To find out who you truly are, you have to get rid of whatever it is you identify yourself with and begin to open yourself up. You have to rise above your beliefs. That’s where it all begins! Who are you for real? Who are you if you weren’t conditioned? Who are you without a label? Are you really you? Who are you without persona’s? Uncategorized. This is interesting to investigate. This has caused me to let go and accept my humanness. I am me, and people know me by the name of Wesley. That’s it.