"Everything I tell you is a lie. Every question I ask is a trick.
You will find no truth in me."
-Vergere, from SW-NJO: Traitor, by Matthew Stover
I hold a master's rank and title, but I do not claim to have mastered anything. Some might suggest that this quasi-Socratic approach to training makes me wise.
I just think it makes me honest.
If anything, I am still a student, with much to learn. Sure, I have invested a great deal of time and effort collecting and organizing my knowledge into a personal system; however, I acknowledge that whatever I have gleaned from my teachers is incomplete, and that part of my role as a mentor to my students is to pass down my unfinished work so that they may one day fill in the gaps with their own answers.
I hope that they choose not to accept my teachings dogmatically. I have no interest in seeing a shrine of my knowledge preserved for eternity. What I pass down has, and always will be, a living system, assembled with both passion and reason as my guides. I hope that my students will try to internalize my teachings to the best of their ability, then analyze it against the backdrop of reality in order to preserve what is useful, celebrate what is beautiful, study what is interesting, and discard the rest while applying the same process to their own process of exploration, with reason to temper passion, and passion to give purpose.
Nothing I say should be accepted as blind truth. It is, to the best of my knowledge and ability, as complete as possible, but it is also incomplete, and therefore not entirely the truth. To this extent, I suggest that it can be a healthy approach as a student to consider the possibility that everything I say is a lie. I say this not because I am untrustworthy, but so that students might subject my passion and ideas to the crucibles of reason and reality in order to discern the truth for themselves.
It is entirely possible that some of what I say might contain some truth. If so, I take no credit for it. Those words were borrowed from another wiser teacher, and should be passed on just as easily as they were given.
Then again, if none of it turns out to be true, then at least I was honest when I told you that everything I said is a lie.
No comments:
Post a Comment