Searching for truth

From Hardcore Zen: Punk Rock, Monster Movies & the Truth About Reality

But if you really thoroughly question everything, if you pursue your questions long enough and honestly enough, there will come a time when truth will wallop you upside the head and you will know.

Not knowing is what brought me to the spiritual path. As a child in church, I tried very hard to believe, like a good girl should (or as I thought she should). I tried and tried and I never felt the knowing, the security, that I had read about others feeling. I was unsure, alone and scared. So then I turned to science. I thought if I could learn everything in the books, if I could become a real scientist, I would know things. But as all students of science learn, what you really find in science are more questions. And what you know, you don't really know because you have to be ready to change your hypothesis to fit any new data that may come along. You can't afford to be sure about anything. We talk to each other using terms like suggest and implicate not know and not certainty. We learn to couch our facts in may and might, to sprinkle words of caution between the statements of fact. Or maybe it is just me. Maybe I am not ready for knowing. The idea of knowing reminds me of my childhood fantasy of a man on a white horse saving me. At first, it was my father, his strong arm comforting me during scary movies and roller coaster ride. Later I hoped for a prince to whisk me off. But those ideas were fantasy. In reality, my father didn't save me, he got drunk and terrorized us. I learned to hope for a savior but at the same time, save myself, always wishing I could relax, let go and be caught in someone's arms, and at the same time, aware that there were no arms to catch me. I was on my own. I guess that's not too bad but it never seemed enough. Not secure enough, not safe enough. With me alone, there was no absolute, no independent measure. Am I kidding myself, deceiving myself? How could I know? It was this nagging question that prodded me on this path and it is still pushing me. And I am still walking, seeking, searching, and crawling. I hope Warner is right. I hope someday I will know, just simply know. Right now, I can't imagine anything better than that.