Truth that is in Uncertainty

Many who chance upon this site will wonder about its author.  Who wrote these words?  Are the author and the words credible?  Why should any of the site's contents be considered?

The thoughts and ideas of Truth in Uncertainty should stand or fall on their own merits before your judgment.

A good idea from the village idiot is still a good idea, even if it is buried in inane ramblings.  A bad idea from the MIT professor is still a bad idea, even if it is packaged in learned jargon and pretty PowerPoint slides.

If you must wonder at the credentials and credibility of the author please think of him as a plain and flawed vessel.  This is not false modesty.  I am indeed of no consequence.

But equally I understand that you would like to be able to put an identity to the author and to know something of his background.
 
My name is Albert.

What right have I to have written these words?

The right of the sovereign individual possessed of that spark of divinity that is to be found within each of us.  You in turn, as a sovereign individual have the right to embrace, challenge, dismiss or disregard what has been written.

What prompted me to write these words?

As a father I am a progenitor - an originator and custodian of ideas, values, and descendants.  If in the future my and your descendants are not alive and living hopeful lives due to our negligence today, will we not have failed in our lives?

I have been and am privileged.  I was born into the ethnic group that has held power in the world for centuries.  But I know this order will not last and is not sustainable.

I was born into the charmed generation that has not directly experienced war, hunger or the violation of civil rights. 

As a very young child I clambered through an archaelogical dig site in Egypt with my father.  In turn, my children have clambered through the ancient ruins of Mexico and Egypt with me.  A deep sense of history is part of who I am.

I hold several nationalities, and speak several languages.  I have internalised more than one culture and value set.  I have had partners of different ethnicity.  I have experienced life and work as a member of a marginalised and disempowered group in an environment where power was in the hands of another ethnic group.

I have travelled widely, observing, engaging, and writing without constraints and without discipline.  I was in Spain under Franco, and again after Franco.  I was in Chile before Pinochet, and again after Pinochet.  I marched against the Vietnam War.  I was in Yemen at the start of the Iraqi occupation by the Occident.

I have been propositioned by the desperately lonely widows of Fort Lauderdale, always blonde, wealthy, mini-skirted, slim and too tanned.  Are they truly better off than the burkha wearing women of Sana'a?  Four blocks back from the Florida beach-front condominiums I have seen the obese and hostile hopelessness of the other losers in the American dream.  Is this the best humanity can do?

I think of Yugoslavia after Tito and wonder at the understanding of the intelligence analysts and correspondents who were surprised at Iraq after Saddam.

I have collaborated with commercial and political elites.  I have been privileged to receive the generosity and affection of the destitute.

I have loved and been loved.  I have wronged and been wronged.  I understand and have felt why death can appear as a viable option.

I hold formal tertiary qualifications but they were a means to an end, and are insufficient for discerning holistic truth.

My values and faith find succour in the music of Beethoven, on the coasts of Oaxaca and Waiheke Island, and in the miracles of large cities not unravelling and 747s becoming airborne.  I regularly fail to meet my own moral standards and am as remote from credibility as any person.