There is no best place to begin or best way to continue writing this book. So let's examine "my" claim that explanation is impossible. I can think of a couple of ways to approach this.

The first is to explain why explanation is impossible. I'm sure you can see the contradiction and paradox in this. The absurdity.

The second is to hold my position, act as if it is absolutely the only possible correct position and say, "I do not explain this claim for no reason, which requires no explanation." And that would be the end of the book. Truthfully, if I was writing only from my own purest position, this book would never have begun. Because it is my own purest position that there is NOTHING WORTH SAYING. I say the concept of "worth" is an arbitrary one. We say things are valuable and purposeful. On one level they are. And, on another level, things, everything, every belief, value, possession, relationship, person, is completely meaningless. I consider this second level to be mostly unnoticed and quite...meaningful.

Of course, you see the contradiction and paradox. If everything is meaningless, what is the meaning of that? How can I say that the meaningless view is meaningful? Let me just say up front that I'm not following conventional logic. It doesn't suit my purposes here.

The meaningful view is a common one. It is the view held in this culture (perhaps by this species) without even knowing that it is a "view." It is unconscious. It is a paradigm. It is "the box," which people possessing a certain creativity may be said to "think outside of." The meaningful view says that, "for whatever reason, some stuff is important." "I must stay alive. The democrats just gotta win this election. Go Vikings! I hate shrimp! How's the stock market doing? I hope I make a lot of money this year. Why is my boss such a jerk?" We see that things are "valuable." We "want" things. We want to be treated well by our boss, to have money, to survive, to be surrounded by loved ones, to keep our bodies warm.

Well, duh.

Now let's consider the meaningless view. Less popular. More on the fringe. More philosophical. More existential or "Eastern" or "Socratic" or whatever. Consider this: for every view that you have, there is another view that is contradictory. And it is held by someone else who is intelligent, sane, logical, and worthwhile. You like the Vikings; someone else likes the Packers. You are a Democrat; someone else is a Republican. Someone else is an Anarchist. You prefer luxury. Someone prefers poverty. People prefer all manner of things, even being treated unfairly, starving, and dying.

I'm not claiming that everyone who is in the situation of being treated unfairly, starving, or dying is choosing it on purpose. Only that in some cases, some people choose these situations willingly. Regular, sane, smart people.

You might argue against the meaningless view. Saying, "Those people are crazy. Show me a suicidal, masochistic, shrimp-loving anarchist Packers fan, and I'll show you someone who needs help." You may have a point. I wouldn't argue with you. I would also say that, in addition to having a point, you have a PERSPECTIVE. You have the perspective that these people to whom I am referring are not regular, sane, smart people. Perhaps some of them aren't. But perhaps some of them are. This is my perspective. It's not crazy, in all cases, to have feelings of warm allegiance to the Green Bay Packers. What about the grandmother of the quarterback? Surely, if she brought you a plate of cookies and you found it in your heart to sit down with her and her granddaughter (the daughter of the QB) and talk about the weather and your families, you would not deem her or her granddaughter to be crazy for being a fan of the team her son played for.

Presented with this scenario, you will likely concede that not every Packers fan is crazy. Maybe one or two of them have good reason to like the team. Maybe if you were in their position, you would feel the same. We're talking about the Mother and daughter of the QB. Consider their perspective. They're proud of the man. They love him in a personal way. Of course they're going to cheer for his team.

"OK," you might retort, "Not all Packer fans are crazy. But most of them are. And people who commit suicide are crazy, or immoral...there's something wrong with that."

Again, I would concede that perhaps some of them are crazy. Perhaps they are sinning against God. We'll deal with sins against God later. Let's talk first about craziness. As a mental health professional, I can say with expertise, that many people who commit suicide are not crazy. Many people who are terminally ill and in a great deal of pain give express
DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) orders to medical staff. I know a nurse who has worked with elderly and dying people for 25 years. She tells everyone she knows that she doesn't want to be kept alive artificially. Not even for a few minutes. She is an expert in this field. Certainly not crazy.

So, I have a perspective and so do you. I say that there is (probably!) at least one rational, sane person who would choose some manner of misery in some given situation. I can find examples from real life, or very probable hypothetical examples. You have a perspective that something is wrong with these people and they need help. They need to be executed, put in prison or on the psych ward. And you can give examples of crazy people doing crazy things. And I encourage you to do so. I don't think that you are wrong, just because you don't agree with me. Or because it seems that you are putting yourself in an oppositional position. I would encourage you to consider your source of information. Where does this view that certain beliefs are crazy come from? How did you learn it? I would encourage you to consider this even if you agreed with me.

Do you think that we are at odds in this scenario? I don't. True to my perspective, I say that you are entitled to your position. That it is a valid one IN ADDITION TO mine. They may not have much in common, our positions. Still, both are valuable. In a way, they make each other possible. How would I even know that I believed that "every position is OK," if you weren't out there saying "some positions are not OK?" My idea would not exist without its opposite.

So, you must know, as an open-minded person, I don't call myself an open-minded person, since that has the illusion of putting me in some kind of position that I have to defend. I'm not the kind of guy who says it's not OK to be a bigot, or a fundamentalist, or a torture enthusiast. That's what maybe a conventionally "open-minded" person might say. I'm also not the kind of guy who says that it IS OK to be a bigot or a torture enthusiast. I'm not any kind of guy. I'm not even the kind the guy who doesn't label people as bigots or torture enthusiasts in the first place. I'm not even not any kind of guy.

You see, I can't represent myself as an open-minded person. Although this is who I am in essence, by using the label, I put myself in opposition to people or philosophies who might be considered "closed-minded." I am not in opposition to them. It also doesn't seem right to say I embrace these closed-minded positions. I see them. I hear them. I know they are out there. I understand them when I encounter them. I don't fight them or argue with them. I can't imagine any scenario where I'd find myself among a group of Holocaust Deniers or Satanic Cult Followers or Gay Funeral Picketers. But if I did, I'd say "hi" and give them a hug or a piece of cake or whatever, if they wanted one.

This is where most of the open-minded people get mad. They'd say that it's better to give those folks a piece of my mind, to set them straight on a score or two. Or to analyze them. Figure them out. And on this level, I say that open-mindedness is another form of closed-mindedness. It is my position that, if you draw a line between what is a valid belief system and what is not, if you say, "well, that's taking it too far. This particular ideology is totally wrong and if you really believe that crap, there is something wrong with you," well, then, you've put a container around your beliefs. It's no longer open. It stops somewhere.

I hope that you know by now that I think it's OK to have beliefs that stop somewhere. Frankly, I find it easier to accept your intolerance of a Holocaust Denier than to accept the beliefs of the denier himself. And I accept them both, regardless of difficulty.

So this is my problem with labeling myself as an open-minded person. If I do that, I represent myself in a box. I label myself. And I can't be what I am and still fit into a label. And I can't logically label myself as someone who doesn't use labels, or someone who doesn't have a label. Because there again, if I say that about myself, I am labeling myself as someone who doesn't use labels. Which is why I find questions useful. Consider the following two sentences:

1. Questions don't really tell you anything.

2. Do questions really tell you anything?