We just don't know (and that's okay)

It was a busy day, and I had a doctor’s appointment. I was taking the elevator to get to the ground floor of the parking garage, listening to messages on my phone as I walked. A man and woman were standing there, chatting, and we all got onto the elevator, together.

There was a sudden, strange silence as we went down the elevator and upon exiting to head into the hospital, I heard the man behind me, grumbling to the woman about those people with their cell phones who couldn’t put them down for even two seconds, and she chimed in in agreement and disapproval.

I felt a curious giggle wanting to arise, since the timing of my cell phone use and their commentary seemed more than coincidental.* I smiled as I walked through the sliding doors of the hospital, thinking: Wow. What an interesting narrative for someone to spin, when they just don’t know.

While sure, I hadn’t been chatty with these strangers on an elevator, the facts were these: That my cell phone is on silent, 99.9% of the time. I use my phone as if it’s still attached to a cord in the wall. That when I drive, I don’t text—really. That I have no games on my phone. That I don’t even have email on my iPhone, except for a junk account that I use when traveling.

In other words–while I certainly use my phone, I’m pretty conscious about how I use it.

Someone saw fifteen seconds of my life, and an entire narrative cropped up about who I must be, because of it.

How interesting that someone would see fifteen seconds of my life on an elevator, and have an entire opinion about who I am, I thought. And then I thought, Where in my life do I do that, too?

We Just Don’t Know

This sort of experience is why Buddhism and so many other spiritual traditions ask you to abandon all “knowing.” When we think we “know” we become limited.

We see one slice, make an interpretation, and then we cling to it, we use it to reinforce our belief systems and sometimes our identity systems without ever questioning whether it might be reflective of an objective truth. These interpretations that we make can color our moods (as it seemed to color the moods of those people in the elevator as they were annoyed with ‘those people’ who are on their cell phones).

Even the concept of objective truth is one that we are cautioned about (Who determines this so-called “objective truth”?).

Instead of grasping on to some idea or concept and making it ours, spiritual traditions such as Buddhism ask us to practice identifying and release concepts. Just as you would notice a thought and then release the thought on a meditation cushion, not holding on to it because to do so keeps you from being fully present, which in turn keeps you from living, releasing our concepts—our capital-S “Stories”—about life can bring us back to what is most true.

I play with this, on the regular, when I notice my own judgments and Stories. I get tossed off with thinking I must know, or with a judgment of a person. Then I try to stop myself and remember:

 I just don’t know. I don’t need to know. I don’t need to cling to the illusion of knowing. I don’t need to have the answer. I don’t need to figure it out.

When we don’t need to “know,” all that’s left is something open and spacious. It’s a different quality of openness or spaciousness ever time, so it’s difficult to describe–more felt than articulated.

The truth that I keep coming back to is that we just never really know, in an absolute sense. Even when we do “know” we are always shifting and changing.

We just don’t know. We don’t even need to know.

*Or not. Who knows? ;-)