Upward, not northward
The book Flatland tells the story of a 2 dimensional square who is given a glimpse of 3 dimensional truth. Upon returning to his 2 dimensional plane world, he repeats the mantra upward, not northward regularly as a reminder of the seemingly impossible yet imperative “upward” move required to elevate oneself to a higher dimension. Although he dies in obscurity, never convincing others of the 3rd dimension, he maintains his tight grasp on the truth of the 3rd dimension until the end.
If you imagine that a point is an absolute truth within the limited scope of itself, and that a line is a broader absolute truth that includes the truth of the point without being limited by it, then you can begin to play with the idea of absolute truths that are not all encompassing. You might be tempted to disregard the point since a line seems closer to Truth, but this quickly leads to an infinite regress: if a line is better than a point, then a plane is better than a line, and a volume is better than a plane, and so on and so forth. This line of reasoning inevitably leads to the conclusion that Truth exists at the infinite dimension… which is unreachable. Wouldn’t this lead to the crossroad decision between getting as close to truth as possible (in an impossible journey) vs. disregarding truth as a guiding principle? Luckily there is a less existential/nihilistic alternative.
Imagine that you are the open-minded square existing on a plane. If you are to make the impossible faith based leap into the void towards the 3rd dimension, your movement must be upward, not northward. That is to say that it must be at a perfect right angle to everything within your reality of existence. This higher dimension does not exist in rejection or denial of the lower dimensions but as a movement guided by the collective truths of all lower dimensions. This changes the move from lower to higher dimensions from a desperate hunt for more truth to an inevitable result of deeply understanding the Truth of your current state. Full Truth does not exist at the unreachable infinite dimension, it exists in the upward movement that intersects all dimensions at a perfect right angle. It is experienced in the movement, not the destination.
My hope dream goal and direction is to increasingly converge on my vector of Truth. My current best guess at my ambiguous possibility probability cloud of the future includes the move to an environment that better supports creating and learning. Because of this I am spending much of my time outside of work focused on developing the skillset to become a software developer through https://launchschool.com/. This blog will primarily function as a record of my growth throughout this program.
Originally published on Medium.