Always and Forever

that doesn’t exist, think about the crusader who lived a secluded life for a few decades and who went to visit Constantinople after the Sublime Porte conquered it and couldn’t find a single church.

For all practical purposes, they never existed.

In his case he has an explanation for what happened, and he doesn’t have to worry about having lost his mind, but that is not always the case. Many of these instances come with no explanations at all.

How do you deal with having absolute certainty about a fact everybody else denies and for which you have no proof?

We call that religion.

I’m not being facetious and I am not promoting the church of the color purple. I’m just trying to prove to you you can have a conviction that is absolute, that screams at you from every corner of your surroundings, but for which you have no scientific proof.

You won’t deny the sky is blue just because you don’t know why yet. In the sky's case it is easy to affirm that, because you get confirmation from everybody else. Standing your ground about what you see with your own eyes when it contradicts broadly held beliefs is much harder.

You want to know what would be my conclusion in the hypothetical case where purple vanished off the face of the earth? First, I’d try to find simple explanations for it, the ones that would fit in the frame of reference I already have.

If one of them works, I’ll accept it and move on.

If none of them work, I would have to stop trying to stop trying to bend the state of fact out of its natural shape and accept the truth, no matter how unlikely: I am no longer in the same world.

You say that that would be insane.

Let me ask you something. What is more insane, trying to find evidence of a color everybody else says doesn’t exist so you can prove the entire world wrong or accepting the fact that even though you are sure that color existed only the day before, it looks like that is no longer the case? If you can come to terms with the fact that you are living in a different world now, a purpleless one, you can plan and organize your life.

Should you doubt your own experience of having seen the color you call purple?

Never.

No matter what you’re told, no matter who will disavow you if you don’t change your mind, no matter how much disappointment, scorn or fury gets summoned against it, your sky won’t stop being blue.

No.

Never second guess your own truth.