from the series Peace House Community Journal…
By MARTI MALTBY
My daughter and I enjoy watching the British murder mystery comedy series Death In Paradise. In many ways, it is mindless fun, and as with most mysteries, there is a plot twist somewhere along the way that leads to the unmasking of the murderer. Of course, the plot twist is always in the mind of the viewer; the writers knew what was going to happen all along, and if they had written the story from the murderer’s point of view, there would be no mystery to solve. All the suspects’ lies, the lines of investigation that go nowhere, the clues that end up mislead the investigation … all of it falls into place and seems quite reasonable once you know the solution (if the mystery is well-written, that is).
I know the same thing happens in real life, but despite that, it can be difficult to escape my own point of view. I know some things, but I think I know other things that later on turn out to be false, and then there’s all the stuff that I don’t know. As my knowledge (so called) shifts, my point of view shifts, and I relate to the world in a different way, even though the world hasn’t changed. Of course, once you add in the time dimension, where the world really does change, where what was true is no longer relevant and what couldn’t happen did happen, it gets even more complicated.
It reminds me of a public speaker who held up a science magazine that had an article about a recent discovery that revolutionized our understanding of the origins of the universe or some similar topic. The headline read, “We used to think [whatever the topic was], but now we know [new discovery]”. The speaker commented that the editors should probably have reversed the headline to read “We used to know [whatever], but now we think [whatever]”. His point was simple: we are certain of our knowledge, until we realize that we are wrong, and then we believe something else, until we prove ourselves wrong again, and so on. As our point of view changes under the onslaught of new information, we are surprised by the plot twist that the universe has thrown at us, forgetting that the truth was there all along, and the limitation was in us. The world didn’t change; we adjusted our understanding of it.
At this point, I am tempted to say that we should be more humble and recognize that we don’t know it all. But at the same time, there is something to be said for having convictions that can survive changing situations. Flexibility is great until it degenerates into spinelessness. After all, the detectives chasing the murderer aren’t better at their jobs because they suspect everyone at different times; catching the person who actually did the crime is the important thing.
So where does all this leave us? Apparently, our target is a realization that we don’t know it all while sometimes acting like we do. That would be so much easier to achieve if we each had our own script writers feeding us our lines. In their absence, we will just have to forge our own combinations of humility and certainty.
Marti Maltby is an avid cyclist, Director at Peace House Community, and an obnoxiously proud Canadian.
