My father and I have a respectable relationship.  We schedule ahead to talk on the phone, no more than once a week, no less than once a month, and have done so for years now.  We request permission and set parameters before moving to different topics.  I look forward to our talks, which never carry on for more than an hour.

I broke protocol one day by springing something on him.  I would be writing an autobiographical account of my work and was even talking with a writing coach.  Predictably my father sidled up — donning his well-worn robe of co-dependent judge and jury, imagining himself my most essential and trusted advisor.  His MO — to promptly poke and prod the sorest parts of my self-esteem about my work.

Equally predictably, I unleashed a few heated words.  I stopped myself before I had inflicted too much damage, shook off my wounded pride, and added calmly, “All I need from you is to know that you hear me and you support my efforts.”

He was gruff and defensive.  “You asked for my reactions.”

Silence. Then a bit more silence. “Did I?”

He hemmed and hawed and finally chuckled at his own wounded position.  I saw that I had some responsibility in us getting into the mess.  I had strayed from protocol.  (Later, I apologized.)

In hopes of smoothing the feathers ruffled by his rather rude prodding, I checked with him as to whether we might continue our talk.  He said yes.

“You said that you don’t understand the scope and meaning of my work.  Does that mean you’ve been putting on an act as we’ve talked about it now and again over the last few months?  Are you pretending to have moments where you feel illuminated?”

“No,” he said, thoughtful but cautious. “It does seem true.  At least when I see it in parts.  Subconsciously true.  I can’t tell you why, but it does seem to be so.”  He paused.  “I don’t get the whole thing though.”

I thanked him for sharing and said it was helpful for me to hear that.  I appreciated him showing up and being willing to have his own full experience, even when it meant him expressing that it is difficult sometimes not to conclude that I must full of hot air.

Understanding reality in parts is in many ways ideal.  We as perceivers have some parts and not others.  Sensory organs, locations, timeframes.  Those are literal parts.  There are figurative ones too.

The whole-ness is big of course, but there’s something else.  The consciously aware part of us gets disoriented when we look into reality’s grandness, “pull the veil back” as mystics since ancient times have referred to it.  It is my experience that people’s tolerances for disorientation vary but skew towards less to none is better.

The reason big picture inquiry tends to be disorienting is that reality collides with meanings.  We experience our perceptions of the parts we know as central not only to reality but to the meanings we derive from life.  It is not necessary for them to be so, but it is if we want a neat story wrapped up with a bow.

Knowing the irreducibly true dynamics of reality has proven so difficult over so long.  Not only is it not possible to sustain that kind of looking beyond a glimpse, there is now an entrenched assumption that it is not possible.  That permits one to conclude “The reason it hasn’t been done, it is that it can’t be done.”  But when it comes to existential inquiry, I see that belief as just so much self-important ass-covering.

I have done more discussion and research on the topic than I care to admit.  Let me assure you.  I find no logical reason or stated rational position that justifies the assumption that the whole cannot be grasped intellectually.  Just as importantly, no logic says that individuals must be able to grasp the whole of it in order to derive benefit from it.  My father not understanding the “whole thing” of what I do (getting at irreducibly true dynamics of reality) is only a problem for the part of him that wishes he could but is unable.  It does not separate him from the truth of it.  He can “subconsciously,” as he said, comprehend something of it, or for that matter nothing at all.  It is still the case that he himself is a full part of the “whole thing.”

I learned a long time ago to settle for this, and not just with my father.   Depending on my mood, I view I can’t tell you why, but it does seem to be so alternatively to be a compromise, a shortcoming, or a puzzle.  In it is, most basically, a recognition of the disorderly loose end to the “story” of reality as well as a mutual respect with the so-ness of the universe, which makes that kind of “getting it” fundamental to my work.

It does not make for a big following.  In fact, I am very familiar with the sound of a pin dropping.

Over the years I have come to appreciate that, when unearthing questions of epic proportions, the achievement is often to “carry on.”

My own ability to “carry on,” and even enjoy life a great deal despite being drawn to doubt very deeply most aspects of reality, is because of the bell of truth.