Andrew Bridgen the Mighty - Campaign Song and Video!

Ryan Tower

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Having too much pride is the enemy of growing in wisdom.

I used to think I had things really figured out, and as a result my awareness only grew more self centered and isolated. I was cynical toward any hopeful ideas about reality or about the future. I thought people who genuinely believed in something were simply ignorant and immature; that they couldn’t face reality as it was and so their belief system was a coping mechanism. In some ways this felt really great because any challenge to my paradigm was easily cast away without any real investigation. However, eventually my world grew dark and lonely. I drank, I smoked, I used drugs to cope with those feelings, all the while telling myself I was sophisticated for doing so..

Until one day I began to question my own paradigm. How was I so sure about what I believed? And what did I really believe anyways?? One of my teachers told me that one good question can change a persons paradigm if they honestly allow the answer to arise as objectively as possible.

Ultimately that question for me was “What is true?”

I started with the pre-socratic philosophers and worked my way forward from there. Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Pythagoras etc.. Aristotle and Plato, but it was in the church fathers from Cappadocia that I think I really began to see the world truly.

I say all that to say that it was ultimately my pride that kept me from seeing the world correctly. Once we entrap ourselves in a worldview and build up the walls so high that nothing can get in or around, we turn our hearts into stone and we become cold, cynical people.

Pride and truth cannot coexist, they cannot share in the same heart simultaneously; one means the sacrifice of the other. And I came to realize that it was this truth, so fundamental to our experience, that was keeping myself and the people around me away from the love of God. It was my pride that shaped the walls of my prison in my mind, not the oppressive nature of culture, the cabal of banking elites, my family, the media or anything else.

I pray that we can all come to see our pride for what it is, and that we can learn to be humble and grateful. I know I’m not living the life I should be and that I’m constantly receiving humble lessons from life. I don’t pretend to have things figured out, but I do enjoy sharing what I learn, and that is going to continue

Philosophy is powerful. I know it may seem esoteric or heady at times but understanding the world is not guaranteed to be simple. It doesn’t come with directions. If you are not interested you can simply unfollow me or unfriend me and stop reading what I write.

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