The Edge of a Flat Earth

“No one states that the world is flat, unless the words are used as a euphemism to make a point.”

“Oh, I don’t know. There are a lot of people who have their minds set on just being disagreeable. You know, the person who if you are in favor of something they are most assuredly against it. Some people like to exaggerate a cause or an idealism, to gain the attention they crave. They know it is not commonly held belief, or so it is said about declarations like that. There are also those who believe we are all part of elaborate hoax, and they and a few of their like minded brethren are the ones that know the truth.”

“Yes, I know people like that, too many as a matter of fact. But I don’t see how placating their whims isn't more educational to me than openly disagreeing with or ridiculing their beliefs, in which case I learn nothing. Arguing and insinuations as to their mental proclivity, accomplishes nothing but more animosity. We have to be more understanding if we are to realize the nature of our differences. It is too easy to say we need to get together, share, get along, but when so many people don’t want that it is a waste of everyone’s time. Many people aren't happy unless they are unhappy. Some can’t be converted, won't be moved by logic they prefer not to understand. Logic and ideals aren't necessarily compatible.”

I do understand the sentiment, even the logic, but I also understand if you bang your head against a brick wall, it is going to hurt you more than the wall.

There is something about wanting to, needing to make everyone feel they belong, that seemed to have quit working for us during our childhood. We have been friends since we were kids. There is something we get from one another, that we, I, don’t get from others.

There is a notion a lot of people have, that if you are right, they have to be wrong. There is an element of skepticism in all of us, but that does not mean there is something wrong with questioning the answers given for problems. Nothing wrong with questioning proposed solutions, especially the solutions you don’t agree with, but also those you do agree with. Conviction means not only espousing a belief, but being prepared and willing to defend it. 

When you can win an argument with yourself, you know you have perfected the logic necessary for belief. That is all it takes, being able to believe your declarations, and be able to back them up with logic. Even flawed logic, causes you to explain your reasoning if only to yourself.

My friend sees only the naked aspects of situations. He tells me everything is "black and white, because that is where the truth lies. When you bring suspicion or doubt into the equation all you do is create confusion."

His logic dictates that you choose one or the other, because if there are more than two options it only provides for the possibility of there being more than one correct answer, and he says “We all know that is impossible.” He’s adamant about keeping everything simple, which I find not only simplistic, but lacking in facts necessary in logic. He believes in the imagination of logic.

When we were kids we used to play this game. We'd lie on the ground on the edge of the hill in his back yard, and stare into the abys. It was a steep hill which allowed us to look over the edge, and see the bottom of the slope where the ground flattened and became a vast land of childhood distortions. We’d pretend all sorts of things looking down at our magical planet and its inhabitants. I believe that is where his unamendable notion of the earth being flat became lodged in his mind. Everything after that, was and is related to that idealism in one form or another. 

He would describe to me what he could see looking over the edge of our planet. His depictions sounded plausible but stark. All he really did however was to remove the mystery from any possibility, and concentrate only on what could be observed. It narrowed the scope of his reality making it fit with the parched landscape it existed in.

I attempted many times to show him the curvature of the earth. The arc can plainly be seen looking out onto the ocean’s skyline. Hold a stick, ruler, anything straight and you can observe the bend of the horizon when compared to the straight line. It was a visible contradiction to his premise, but some people have the ability to take lemons, and see only the meringue.  His faith however would not allow him to see the arc. He would when asked, have no end of theories about images being manipulated to suit need, secret societies that wish to control our vision so as to control our world view; all contradictions of his claim of wanting only to be free from influence, free from influence that disagreed with his idealism.

Dealing with contradictions to not only your own beliefs, but the possibility that belief itself is irrelevant as faith in idealism is greater than faith in reality, is difficult to understand, but even more difficult to accept.

I asked him, mainly because I was beginning to become angry, which I know solves nothing. It wouldn't change his beliefs about a world he is skeptical of. I asked him one day, “What do you see when you look over the edge of your world.”

I really did want to understand how two diametrically opposed visions of the same continuum, in this case earth, could be so different.

He looked at me and said as definitively as I had ever heard him state anything, “Nothing.”

“Nothing? You see nothing! The brilliant array of stars and planets, a moon glowing in celestial space keeping watch over us, adjusting our blanket of life daily to ensure our survival, and you see nothing?”

We stood for a long while starring into the sky. His head tilted back, eyes closed, seemingly attempting to consume the cosmic messages bombarding us daily, and said “It’s daytime.”

The simplicity and truthfulness of his response left me weak-kneed. It was his paraplegic response to reality, that I’d forgotten can creep to the forefront of vision, and keep us from being challenged by anything more than the obvious, black, and white.

We remain friends. We have agreed to an unspoken acceptable agreement. I do not mention a past I believe responsible for the earth not only appearing to be flat to some, and on the brink of erupting into flames, and he does not speak of a future he has yet to create, because his tomorrow is always, just a day away.

“Nothing?” An infuriating and yet insightful window into a soul that sees only what it needs to see, and not only disregards the rest, but does so with such devotion it makes me reconsider my own observations that indemnify my reality.

There does however come a time in our lives, when reality is not enough. We must search for and hopefully find our vision, to be not only attainable, but beneficial. If others are content with idealisms that sustain their level of expectancy, and it does not intrude negatively on others worlds, then so be it. What does it hurt. 

The one undeniable fact is that we at times are our own worst enemies, as we project our observations and beliefs on others, not in the hope of converting them, but with the necessity of reinforcing our own mania.

I lay once again on that edge looking down into an abyss of hopelessness, as the world is trapped in the contradiction between exploding in fire, or drowning in complacency. I see the parched grass, the trees sending their prayers by way of starry embers heavenward, and hope only, that the illusions different from my own, find happiness on another planet, anywhere but here.

As I offered my response to his “Nothing,” he responded in a manner I had not expected. His response awakened me to the fact he’d been listening to my thoughts, and blurted his retort, out there he mumbled, "I'm not going out with you again!”