I'm Wrong

Spoken Word

I'm wrong.

Every day I almost drown in the sea of my wrongness. I'm wrong so often, it's a wonder I'm ever right. Sadly, this is inevitable. I know virtually nothing when compared to the total knowledge of humanity. Whenever I open my mouth, no matter how right I think I am, it's almost infinitely more likely that what comes out is simply a display of what I do not know, how wrong I really am, rather than a display of what I do know. Sadly, this obviously doesn't apply to just me, it applies to all of us. Even more sadly, it applies equally to humanity as a whole, for we know virtually nothing when compared to the set of all possible knowledge.

This fact doesn't stop me from speaking. It shouldn't. If we want to improve, it can't. We cannot grow if we are not confronted with our wrongness. If I kept it to myself, I could be perfectly content in the belief that I'm right. It is only by speaking out my thoughts and feelings and then accepting reality when others prove it, that I can learn how ignorant, misguided, silly, and just plain wrong that I am. Again, the same holds true for humanity as a whole. We need to speak. We need to listen. And, we need to genuinely think. To do otherwise is to submit to delusion.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• spoken
• word
• delusion
• wrong
• free
• speech
• think
• belief

[SaintCog]

Not sure about the sea/drowning metaphor. It sets up a picture that is not resolved with a boat/ shallow end/ floating . The mouth is the cause of this wrongness sea, but drowning implies loss of speak. "Dark of wrongness" would allow for speak to be confusing like a multiple echos in a cave and a signal listened to and filtered, used to navigate reality like a bat. You also used the word growth which could make wrongness a fertilizing and /or toxic medium. My $0.02. Got me thinking, thx.

[renegade4dio]

@SaintCog Wow. I'm humbled. You managed to think deeper about my choices than I did! I didn't ponder every word. I wrote it in about 1/2 hour with very little revision from the first draft. It just "seemed right". I imagined myself deep underwater, in a still, silent stasis, looking up at the distant surface light. But, now that you point it out, lost in the dark looking out at the entrance of a cave or some such probably is a better metaphor than drowning.

[RowanFortuneWood]

Well put; fallibilism in verse :) I like it. 

[renegade4dio]

@RowanFortuneWood Thanks... And about as didactic as one can get in free verse, methinks. Since our exchange on the subject, I've spent a not insignificant amount of time trying to create a work that WASN'T didactic... I now think that such art is not only somehow beyond my ability to appreciate, it's beyond my ability to create. I'm a little saddened by that realization, but I guess that achieving that self understanding is better than deluding myself into believing I can do what I cannot.

[GodKillerAtheist]

Great video! They won't give you proof but they will give you all the personal insults you want.

[renegade4dio]

@GodKillerAtheist Thanks! I'm actually a little surprised you didn't comment on my last video. It was, in my opinion, quite in line with your style.

[Khyrid]

Intellectual honesty is the path to intellectual superiority. It reminds me of a Chinese finger trap, you have to give in to be free.

[67sixtyseven67]

THIS IS SPARTAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!

[Elaina43]

Yep! I know that I relate.

[TheAist]

@renegade4dio naw, you were right. im just being silly.

[FeroGotBalls]

This is exactly why free speech is so very important, great vid.

//Fero

[ceresWar]

you look like joaquin phoenix

[RowanFortuneWood]

@renegade4dio My own perspective has been back and forth a few times since then; however in my view what is most important as an artist is always to be thinking self-critically about what one is trying to create and never be fully satisfied, which touches on the great subject of your poem.