There is no absolute.
Well, unless you believe there is one. When we have a belief we know it to be true - to us. We know what is right and wrong, possible and impossible. And we know it with certainty. Many children know with the same absolute certainty that a jolly man in a red suit climbs down the chimney and leaves presents under a tree each year.
In the early 50's, my father had an argument with my grandfather and said that the world is changing and one day, man will go to the moon. My granddad laughed and said - 'Impossible!' In 1969, my father received a call with something to this effect - 'Never did I believe that such a thing was possible until I saw it with my own eyes. How short-sighted I have been.'
We are all blinded by our beliefs. The world is flat and the sun revolves around us, man will never fly, there is only space for 5 computers in the marketplace, the internet is a fad, CGI will never be realistic enough to be believable, digital cameras won't surpass analogue. Yet, just as one belief is broken and hindsight shows the error in our ability to see into the future, a new absolute belief takes its place with renewed certainty.
When I was a kid my older brothers would ask, what is the largest number I could think of and I would respond with something like, 1,625,676. They would respond with another question - how about 1,625,677?
There is no such thing as the largest number and no such thing as the smallest. There is no 0. The concept of zero exists of course but there is no tangible 'nothing'. The only way we can process this endlessness is to limit our thinking to contain what we think we know. So, we set ourselves rules that become our truth, only testing them with factors that support our theory and actively ignore the external questions that challenge the rule. This creates a warm and cosy environment to nestle into but without evaluation, may lead to a very distorted and unrealistic view of our situation.
Rather than believe we are right and wait to be proven wrong (which is the normal order of business) it may be more beneficial to assume we are not right and attempt to discover and uncover our processing errors. The first method delivers an absolute so further investigation is rarely implemented, the second deals in uncertainty which requires a continual evaluation of current and emerging alternatives. Asking questions like: Is our product the best it can be, the system as lean as possible, do I know all I need to know? - may bear juicier fruit when answered objectively.
Some people believe there is a black and white world and some that there is a whole lot of grey. To me, white is the entire visible spectrum combined, black the absence of it, in between the two extremes, there can be only colour. Stare at the sun and blindness follows, live in the dark and eyesight is useless. The result is the same.
Well, this is my belief - today. Tomorrow, I will know more.
Taraz