ASSUME THE POSITION

July 17, 2025
Drew
Thought
0 Comments

It’s a weird time to be alive. I guess time and life are always weird in one way or another, but things feel especially discombobulating now.

Today, we have unprecedented access to information and knowledge, but at the same time we’re inundated with deliberate misinformation and manipulation. We’re able to connect and communicate with each other across the planet like never before, yet we find ourselves more deeply divided, not only from far-away strangers but also from our neighbors, friends, and family. We have the resources and technology to heal and feed the world, to create global peace and cooperation, to eliminate poverty. But a lot of us are choosing ignorance, isolation, and contempt. It’s confusing. Infuriating.

I’m having a hard time trying to reconcile my belief in humanity’s fundamental goodness with all the ways that we seem to f*cking everything up so stupidly. We live in a miraculous age of boundless ideas and possibility. But it feels so rotten so much of the time.

My sister sent me this cartoon a year or so ago. It’s on my fridge:

It’s become harder to avoid conspiracy theories or even to recognize when we’re caught up in one. Because we’ve lost faith in expertise (so-called) and in institutions (perhaps for good reason), we may not know who and what to trust. The problem with this is that it can prime us to retreat into our basest survival and self-protective instincts. And nowadays, when we’re anxious, not only do we have the ability to sculpt around ourselves bubbles of information and social networks that will confirm our comforting biases and stoke our familiar fears and prejudices, we have algorithms to do that for us almost invisibly without our even noticing.

I read something — or maybe it was a podcast — about the pull of conspiracy thinking that posited that a lot of it is about our human desire to be “in the know.” Especially to have “inside” information, to understand things in a way that few others do. People want the scoop. And the rarer that “scoop” is, the greater its perceived value. Which I understand, I guess. But it also seems pretty obvious that this tendency can make the most ridiculous rabbit holes appear the most attractive.

We want to belong, but we have this convoluted urge to belong in a small way that excludes most others. No wonder we’re confused.

Actor Alan Alda, who is also an advocate for education and communication, especially around the sciences, said: “Begin challenging your own assumptions. Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in.”

Sound advice. It’s great to exercise critical thinking, whether our assumptions reflect the majority opinion, or whether we’re drawn to the fringes. We need to be willing to question ourselves. Especially if our assumptions are filling us with paranoia, suspicion, and despair. Especially if our assumptions are pulling us apart at the seams. For heaven’s sake.

Plenty of smart thinkers have advised that we should do our best to assume nothing. It’s one of the Four Agreements posited by Don Miguel Ruiz — Agreement number 3: Do not make assumptions. Ernest Holmes said, “Principle is not bound by precedent” — meaning, don’t assume that what is possible is limited to that which has come before.

Assumptions are forged in the past, and they tend to keep us stuck in the past. Assumptions are inert, resistant to change. They allow little room for new solutions, growth, epiphanies, or “miracles.” If we want to break free and break through into a world of unprecedented harmony and beauty, into lives of greater fulfillment and love, a great way to start is to begin untangling ourselves from the assumptions that bind us to everything that’s not working.

But I find it terribly hard to assume nothing for any length of time. I’ll question, I’ll wonder, I’ll open my heart and mind to the unknown with trembling awe… FOR AWHILE… But pretty soon I find that I need something to hold onto. Something to believe in, something to have faith in and with.

Spiritual principles can do it for me sometimes… but I’ll always be a rebel, so I resist anything that sounds like a creed or doctrine. I trust myself… until I don’t. I crave (for myself and our country) leaders and representatives behind whom I can wholeheartedly get… but then partisan politics is so toxic that it makes that whole landscape really hard to navigate with confidence.

So let me offer this. Recently, I stumbled across it while looking through old files. I’m not sure when it was written. I’ve had it for at least 10 years. It’s by feminist blogger, Anne Theriault:

15 Assumptions You Should Make Today

Assume that you are loved.
Assume that those who love you find some kind of value in you and that things that you do.
Assume, however, that you don’t need to be valuable in order to be worthy of love.
Assume that there is no one out there keeping a tally of all your failings, ready to throw it in your face when you’re either feeling too good or too awful about yourself.
Assume that if anyone actually is keeping a tally of all your failings, that act says more about them than it does about you.
Assume that you can’t make all the people happy all of the time; maybe not even some of the people some of the time.
Assume that you will, over the course of your life, sometimes anger or disappoint the people you love.
Assume that when this happens, it isn’t the end of the world, even if that’s what it feels like.
Assume that there is never an end to learning, or growing, or discovering.
Assume that you will always find a way out, even when all the doors slam shut and everything feels impossible.
Assume that sometimes earnestness and optimism can trump irony and cynicism.
Assume that it’s possible to recapture the way you felt when you were young, how the perfect clockwork mechanism of the universe used to leave you breathless and giddy with wonder.
Assume that there will always be more stories to tell, or at the very least new ways of reinterpreting old fables.
Assume that nothing is permanent, that someday even the sun will disappear; remember that everything we see and touch and taste is made of stars that grew and pulsed and died long before this planet ever existed.
Assume that you are under some kind of obligation to make the world a better place.

Quite a list, right? When it’s hard to assume nothing, maybe we can choose what we’re going to assume. If we’re not real careful about it, assumptions will tend to lead us into limitation and prejudice as we struggle to fill in the blanks of our understanding. But perhaps we can practice making assumptions that are creative and active, rather than passive and unconscious.

I can’t wait to be with you this Sunday, July 20. With special musical guests, Carla Van Blake Terwilliger and Steve Terwilliger! XO, Drew