Everyday Canvas

Re-assessing Beliefs and Taught Things

Prompt: Since I am reading Adrienne Rich at the moment, here’s a quote. “Until we know the assumptions in which we are drenched, we cannot know ourselves.” This quote blew me off. If what we have been taught, believed, witnessed and agreed with were, in fact, assumptions, how in the world can we get to know our real selves? Your thoughts?

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Just imagine! What if anything and everything we believed about ourselves and our environment were to be fake, made-up, and false? I guess I wouldn’t be here and who I am would be a falsetto, which would mean my name, my family background, what I've been taught, what I believe in, my love for the people in my life, my love for reading, writing, and other things like that…The list is endless.

Surely, I don’t believe my life is full of assumptions. But thinking about those things tosses me into a different reality as if I were suddenly thrown into the wild waters of an alien planet. This also means if I ever attempt to write a sci-fi story, I know where to start.

Then, there is also something to thinking about the what-ifs of our established or taught beliefs. If we all truly did examine those by taking our present-day issues one by one, we’d get rid of our preconceived ideas, false presumptions and, most important of all, our biases. That wouldn't be so bad, don't you think!