RAY'S VIEWS ONLINE

This, for what it’s worth, is my 150th blog post. I’m told I’ve written almost 100,000 words, had over 1300 ‘visitors’, over 500 ‘likes’, and have over 60 ‘followers’. If you’re among these, thanks for your interest, which is appreciated, and in no way taken for granted. What matters most, however, is that my steadily-declining-in-number brain cells continue, like my ageing limbs and stiffening-up fingers, to get all-important, regular exercise. Anything beyond that is a bonus.

On the one hand, a lifetime’s reading around literature, religion, mythology, philosophy, science, analytical psychology, music, history etc, still feeds my mind’s mini-reservoir of contents. On the other hand, the discipline of limiting myself to around 650 words per post, demands focus on what matters most, and the disappearance of embroidery and padding.

Am I writing anything worth reading? That’s for others to decide. The more I write, the more I realise how much I don’t know. Contrary to what some might think, I don’t even try to persuade myself, let alone you, that I’m a fount of definitive knowledge, wisdom and truth. But neither is anyone, nor anything, else, so I’m in plentiful company. 

There’s always the possibility, of course, of suggesting ‘answers’ to questions that very few people are currently asking (a trap some long-established religions can fall into). I’m happy, nonetheless, to challenge what seems to me to be received orthodoxy and, since today’s heterodoxy often becomes tomorrow’s orthodoxy, hopefully my scribbling can continue until life’s curtain comes down.

Truth, I think, is not about an attainable destination, so much as an ongoing journey. To ‘arrive’ is therefore not to arrive, which ought to sound the death knell to dogmatism of every description. All we can have, is views, beliefs and opinions. We need these in order to get up each day and go about our business with reasonable facility.

A world without these helpful ‘signposts’ would be a bewildering maze, or even a hazardous minefield. Signposts, however, we should keep reminding ourselves, are never destinations and, in what we think and write, we should not imagine for ourselves, or pretend to others, that they are. Bon voyage!