The World According to... Boring John

I don't believe in false prophets!

Who does, they're false after all.

What I mean to say is that I don't believe in anything -- religion, self-help theory etc. -- that doesn't at least allow me to challenge it, in some way.

Ideally, and sufism and maybe Quakerism comes to mind here, the ideology or belief system should allow other ideologies or belief systems to also exist, should even encourage this.

Simplistically put, I can't do Christianity (though I admire the much mis-understood Jesus Christ) because Christianity can't do homosexuality.

I can't do Islam, because -- and this is shared with most religions -- Islam can't do other religions.

Etc.

(I have a theory about a person's religion that I've never heard anyone mention before. So I'm going to claim it for myself and call it the (working title only) BJ religion Theory.

The theory states: a person's religion closely matches that person's prejudices before they followed that religion, or it matches prejudices that person is happy to accept in their life so that they can follow that religion.

That means I, personally, could never follow a religion that thinks of women as second to men.

That means the religion I follow must acknowledge other religions.

That means the religion I follow must not judge non-believers.

That means the religion I follow should not be based on translations of words made thousands of years ago; it should, instead, be based on essence, on spirit, rather than exact words.

So what do I believe in?

The moment.

People.

Truth, aka wisdom.

The trouble with wisdom...

So I'm a big believer in wisdom or following the path of least resistance (think about it).

Wisdom has been around forever. It never changes. Even the wise Marcus Aurelius said, over a two thousand years ago, that there was nothing new about wisdom (I mis-quote).

To me, wisdom is truth.

It's the best way to achieve something.

It's the way it is, whether we like it or not.

It simply is.

However, today, I had my first ever moment of doubt regarding wisdom.

I was reading a magazine article about the somewhat flawed relationship between two lovers who are now friends. Each had been unfaithful to the other - she had slept with his twin-brother, whilst he had slept with her boyfriends. Still, despite it all, they remained friends.

I then started thinking about one of my own opposite sex relationships, un-wise in many ways, and -- to completely bastardise an American expression -- un-moved-on from. Family and friends all offer sound advice -- i.e. wisdom -- on what I should do, but I have mostly ignored their counsel, and the relationship continues.

Should one always be wise, or can growth come from being un-wise?

Should one be deliberately un-wise then, or am I kidding myself in thinking that it's that easy to actually be wise?

So many questions.

All prompted from reading this magazine piece, and from writing this email reply (sent a few moments ago; I include an excerpt below):

"As regards staying in touch with your ex- or doing other stuff that isn't 'wise', whilst I bow down to wisdom more or less every time -- it speaks the truth, after all -- that doesn't mean to say that it can't or shouldn't be done.

"I think I need to cultivate a more healthy disregard [to the teachings of wisdom], every now and then."

Emails.

So much more succinct.