It was a beautiful summer day. The kind that your mom sends you out to play and you end up spending all day outside .
The adventure on this day was scaling a new mound of dirt and rock at a nearby construction site. We also had found some scraps of lumber and in our imagination had transformed them into spears.
As the saying goes all was fun and games…until a neighbor girl came riding up on her bike and one of my companions told us to act like we were going to throw our spears at her. Completely unintimidated she picked up rock and hurled it our way. More specifically an eighth of inch next to my eye.
“When you are led astray by ignorance, you betray your potential for wisdom.”
– Matshona Dhliwayo My literally nearly blinding experience was a great – and – painful lesson about allowing myself to be led astray.
A lesson that one only need to relearn so many times before you figure out a healthy dose of skepticism is the best antidote.
Unlike cynicism, which involves a distrustful or negative view of people’s motives and intentions, skepticism seeks evidence, validity, reliability and reasoning to make a determination.
Cynicism actually is often in fact an effective tool to lead people astray. Create a negative cynical narrative and unless someone brings a lens of skepticism folks are easy swayed to fiction and falsehood. As Enlightenment French philosopher Denis Diderot wrote, “Skepticism is the first step toward truth.”
There is no shortage of those who look for opportunities to lead us astray. As Jesus of Nazareth consistently encouraged his early followers, “be alert” for there is no shortage of “false prophets.” Good to have a healthy dose of skepticism.
BP