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Doubt, a virtue that does not get enough credit

Image - Courtesy of the Pizzaonian Art Institute, Abe Straction, curator

 

The subject of faith is one that seems infinite.  The term itself seems to invoke very different feelings in each of us.  To believe something, absolutely, without definitive proof, is asking a great deal of most of us. 

I am always troubled by people who have no doubt about their belief systems.  This does not mean that I don’t also accept many things on faith, including some of my most important and treasured values.

But it does mean I also have doubt.  It sneaks in during the middle of the night like any thief and makes me question the unquestionable.  However, as the years go by, I am no longer sure that doubt is a thief - or that the middle of the night has any significance. As a matter of fact, I have come to see doubt as virtue.

I do not believe my occasional bouts with doubt compromises my faith in anyway.  But doubt does allow me to rethink what I believe, and in my case it makes me the stronger for its existence.

This begs the question, why? Answering this is tricky, since the answer runs the risk of making me seem insincere in my beliefs. First and perhaps the most important, doubt keeps me from trying to impose by belief systems on someone else. 

This is very healthy because it forces me to do the most important thing of all, live what I believe as an example, and let my actions speak for themselves. If my faith is to have any meaning at all, it should be in how I live, not what I talk about or try to impose on others.

Think of how this concept could change the world. At the very least, if nothing good seems to happen by living our faith by our example, it would at least get rid of the barbarism that is foisted on so many by those amongst us who never seem to doubt anything.

As the saving goes – “God help us from those who are trying to save us!”

Brother Giovanni, commenting for Giovanni and Franco, a division of the Pizzaonian Newsertainment Network, Diverti Mento, editor

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On the nature of politeness - politeness often masks the truth by diluting it.

 

Conjectures of a recovering dilettante while traveling the road to Utopia.

What to say and how to say it has always been the problem.  To seek the polite way of communication, that is to speak with an acceptable voice that resonates with politeness and deference, is often the way of more timid. 

This may seem harsh to most, but I am amazed how many times we hide behind politeness.  Since politeness is considered a virtue, it becomes an insidious and convenient mask for the faint-hearted.

The obvious problem is that politeness often masks the truth by diluting it and making it palatable, and in so doing it makes the truth less attainable.  Once this habit of politeness takes root it helps to establish a belief system that seems very comfortable with its delusion of heroic qualities. 

The problem is the truth can only be masked so long, and if you are very lucky, it will finally appear in all of its glorious beauty.  For many, this is the beginning of their personal salvation.

 
Brother Giovanni

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Maturity is the long-awaited condition that we hope age and experience will create - unfortunately, not always so.

(C)copyright    Pizzaonian Art Institute, Abe Staction,curator
Image:  Maturity waiting to happen, by Pizzaonious

 

It may be a long way to Tipari, but it is a longer road still to maturity.  Maturity is the long-awaited condition that we hope age and experience will create - unfortunately, not always so. 

In the American experience, maturity is perpetually delayed by entertainment – a process that keeps you from confronting yourself.  The business of having to grow an economy cannot have its potential customers sitting around contemplating life.  Economies require infusions of cash for new products that somehow always seem to resemble the old products they replace- without this infusion they die. 

There is some good in this process.  It brings some innovation and increases the so-called standard of living.  And, if it does none of these things, it always creates the illusion that growing is good and necessary for our well-being. 

The distinction between need and want is the problem that marketers face everyday.  If you are lucky, or smart enough, to have a product that people need, you do not have to work as hard as the rest of us. 

Most of us have to create the illusion that what people want is also what they need.  That is the little kept secret:  Making something no one needs, and making that something that everyone wants is the gateway to success.  We call this successful marketing.  Without it, we would all be in big trouble. 

As time goes by actual products run their course. The natural progression of continually making the same look like the new runs out – there are only so many products.  Thus was born the service industry.  Now we have always had necessary services, but as an industry, we matured.  There are only so many necessary services. The rest we call entertainment.  In the United States we also call it politics.

 

The service industry creates distraction: works of art that only exist for the moment. This makes the artist, Christo, a prophet.  He said, “Do you know that I don’t have any artworks that exist?  They all go away when they’re finished.”  Does anything better define the service industry? 

Now even contemplation is a product.  Create a culture where every waking moment is necessary to survive, and top it off with products that require constant reinventing.  Nice work if you can get it. 

And we wonder why maturity is a delayed process.

 

Brother Giovanni, reporting for Pizzaonian Newsertainment Network, Diverti Mento, director

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