Quixotic Logic

Intelligence, honesty, and knowledge were metrics I once used for worth. I lived in pursuit of the truth and the true path. Evil, illusion, deception, and insincerity were my enemies. I made many more by association. I would not suffer fools and carried the sword of truth, always, at my side.

Perception was all important to my young self. Deduction, inference, and extrapolation especially so. Each day I constantly practiced these skills on everything I saw. My wit grew sharper, my eyes practically all seeing. It got so I could hardly look at a person before I would tear them apart, uncovering their motives, their past, their qualities and reasons for those qualities. But by and by I took that that sword, and as I held it, examined it, suspicion stole over me: the shadow of fearsome deja vu, which, like a forgotten dream, eluded substance. And though a whisper warned me, "No, better not, that's such a good place to go," I had to know. I took that blade of insight, which I had mercilessly sharpened on others, and I stabbed myself. And out from the gash spilled a river of pent up truths.

I understood. I understood that, no matter how resolutely I opposed Evil, it was useless, because Evil does not exist, because Good does not exist. I understood that all my life I had operated on baseless assumption. It dawned on me that the hoard of information I'd accumulated, opinions fought for, correct spellings defended, were make believe. I watched my cherished insight descend into limitless Ouroborosian conclusions, and destroy itself. Desperately I chased the waterfall of cause and effect back into infinity and realized what I should have known all along: that all knowledge is but illusion, that I don't actually know anything.

And I still don't, and I never will, not in that objective way I once sought. Logic is useful, ultimately, only for discovering this one irrefutable fact: that all we know is a loose array of undefined terms, and that from time time we forget. That Quixotic sword of logic still hangs at my side, but I don't touch it much. Often I'm tempted out of anger or hope, to tear it free and cut down the others around me, even though they know not what they do, to blight them with my insight and shatter their illusions. But what would that accomplish? If I succeed I'll simply create unhappiness. Misery does love company, but I'd rather not come by it that way.

Besides, the truth, one of them anyway, is that a until a man derives meaning for himself he never believes. He simply assumes, "ah, of course, they've got it completely wrong," and goes on with life. Only when an argument comes from within is it futile to resist.