What do I know?
By that I seem to mean: What do I know to be true? to be reality?
Not what did I “learn” in all my years of schooling. (Definitely not that.)
Not what do I believe, or want to believe, or choose to believe. (I would say that facts like the earth’s orbit around the sun belong in this category. I accept them as true, but do I really know?)
Not what came to me through the filter of family, or the white supremacist-patriarchal-christian-capitalist culture.
What do I know, really?
Perhaps I only know for sure what this particular body/mind has experienced directly. Okay, so start there:
I know that emotional distress arises out of the experience of wanting.
I know that a sense of pleasure arises in response to sunshine (but not too much sunshine), and rustling trees and salty ocean air.
I know that another person’s drama is not mine to fix or solve or even grok.
I know that communicating clearly (both expressing and hearing) is extremely difficult and endlessly humbling.
I know that the taste and sensation of chocolate on the tongue is pleasurable.
But perhaps even these statements can be questioned. Do I really know this? Might I be mistaken? It has been my experience that the capacity of the human mind for self-deception cannot be overestimated.
Several other things got added to the list but then deleted, because they are more like things that I am choosing to believe, rather than actually knowing. The list of what I choose to believe is much longer.
What do you know?