My meaning

I thought I had it.

As a 20-something year old, I had a suite of thoughts. Constructs. Packages. They were my lens through which I saw, made sense of - and talked about - the world. In the most unimaginably cruel way, like a cheap plastic tarp is ripped continuously while strapped to a senselessly speeding B double, my certainty crumbled. It hadn't waned, at least not seemed to. It simply ceased to be, as if overnight. But it was brutal.

At the time, in the madness, I could hardly make sense of it. Multiple spot fires, looming and at times seeming to threaten my survival. My pithy one-liners that I'd clung to were proven to be trite and useless. My confidences were folly, illusory at best.

An old illustration I'd liked was that of the two bridges. "Two bridges, two men. The first man crosses, full of chutzpah and bravado - big cahones - but his bridge is shit rope, flimsy. Perilous and deadly. The second man is unsure, conciliatory, even untrusting and afraid, but he crosses nevertheless. His bridge is made of firm stuff, graphene-like, unwavering. The object of their faith was the bridge, in the end, and the rest was accompanying emotionalism. The faith act was the verb of crossing".

It seems to me naive now, rich in point-making only. Justifying an underlying agenda. There was a "scholar" held in esteemed reverence who was venerated in those old circles I ran in, he would make similar lay ups. Except the requirements of his continued rockstar status in that world meant that he wasn't free to wander outside the bounds of [his own and our] orthodoxy lest he be spat out. Truth and freedom of thought require independence from groupthink and tribal pressure. I like what Bertrand Russell said:

“I should like to say two things, one intellectual and one moral. The intellectual thing I should want to say is this: When you are studying any matter, or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only what are the facts and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted either by what you wish to believe, or by what you think would have beneficent social effects if it were believed. But look only, and solely, at what are the facts. That is the intellectual thing that I should wish to say".

Legend. I'm there.