February 5, 2004
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Fence sitting;
it’s not just the splinters that hurt.
I often refer to myself as a fence sitter, usually in a negative context. By fence sitting I mean that I can’t make up my mind about what I believe is the truth or what is the correct conclusions to draw concerning various subjects. These subjects range from the benign petty stuff like, is how I dress important, to the more life significant stuff like, is there a God. This affliction gets in my way constantly as I try to come to conclusions about what position to take on a myriad of subjects that one must deal with on a daily basis. It becomes obvious to one who is challenged in this way that functioning every day requires a constant stream of acting on decisions that one has made as to what are the facts.
While acutely aware of my own struggle with this necessity of being functional, I am also very aware that many, if not most, people do not struggle with this, at least outwardly. Most people that I observe are very comfortable with dealing with life’s decisions based on very concrete visions of what is true, what is right and what is wrong. To them, the “plain truth” is only “common sense”. The only challenge they face is learning to espouse concise, irrefutable rationale to support their position. Often this line of logic is not proclaimed to anyone but themselves so, therefore, must only pass their own weak scrutiny: Life via truisms. While the shortcomings of this approach are obvious, at least to me, it does have a positive side; these are the people that get things done. Right or wrong, for better or for worse, they are the ones that will act and make change. While I’m sitting up on the fence studying the landscape, trying to decide which way the drainage ditch ought to run, these folk are out digging. They may dig their hearts out only to eventually realize that they are trying to make the water flow up-hill, but they will invariably turn around and keep digging in a different direction. Eventually they’ll hit the creek. All the while I’m still sitting, thinking, weighing, and watching the pasture turn into a swamp.
Why bother to find proof there is a God if believing on faith makes life simpler?
I am slowly reaching an understanding of where my own vacillation finds its roots. At the risk of sounding like I’m patting myself on the back (which is exactly opposite of my self-deprecating nature) I will say that the root of the problem lies in the drive to get to the absolute truth of a matter. The goal should not be to win the argument, but to find the truth (I was born on Earth, just like you) The problem with this foundation is that there are very few absolutes in nature. Like the man said, “death and taxes”. Most other issues are shades of gray. And, in trying to determine the grayness level we are often left with supposition and intangible, ethereal concepts with which to work. The strength of arguments is often influenced in large part by the skill of the purveyor. For one who is waiting to make final disposition until the irrefutable facts are uncovered, the process can become an endless tug-of-war. Many facts turn out to be only maybe’s. My entire life has been spent working with technology. This has only exacerbated my troubles. The common perception is that engineers are the epitome of those whose world is black and white. My reaction to this life’s work has been just the opposite. I have had too many, countless, incidences where the facts all pointed to, “Go ahead, crank the pressure up a little higher. She can take ‘er”. Only to spend the next several hours cleaning up the mess and the next several days determining the new set of facts. This has resulted in a level of skepticism that should earn me favorite son status in
These introspective delvings are usually only interesting to the delver so I’ll stop while I’m behind on this one.
So, I’m left with the question, “is being a fence sitter a good thing or a bad thing”. I’m not sure. I think the truth may be somewhere in the middle.
Comments (8)
But are you as true a fence-sitter as you claim? Are you not a parent, and a former business-owner, and a leader of a manufacturing team? And do those positions not require constant leadership, in the form of ”yep, that’s right,” and “nope, that’s wrong” decision-making on a daily basis, even when internally you are indecisive?
I would argue that although there are certainly a world of “life-via-truism” folk out there, perhaps there are fewer than is evident on the surface. Let us take, for example, me and my sort-of-non-belief in God. I generally say I do not. Sometimes I say I’m not sure. But in any case, in my worldview, I’ve got a lifetime (and beyond, if there is a beyond) of the luxury of indecision on this point. If there is a God, in my worldview he/she/it would not be so petty as to judge me on my nonbelief during this brief span of life. So bring on the fence-sitting.
But there are other decisions which brook no such timeframe. In my worldview, I see a million undug ditches that will result in a million fields lying fallow should someone not fall to the shovel. And despite my own complete cluelessness regarding the placement of gas lines, I figure I need to jump in there and start making dirt fly. Is this approach wise? Is it considerate? Is it RIGHT? Perhaps not. But if one seeks perennially for the absolute truth, will one not miss the happenstance joy (or indeed the concrete benefit) of the correct guess? And what, after all, is the source of most of the world’s knowledge to date but that scintillating bit of guesswork?
Even the search for the absolute truth requires the occasional abandonment of potential side trail A, B and C. And the permanent passing-by of all those sidetrails (or the making of those decisions; the leaping from those fences), it seems to me, is the inevitable result of getting older.
[incidentally: the writing here is a brilliant mix of philosophy and tongue-in-cheek wit that's wonderful to read!]
PS my last line was meant to refer to YOUR writing, of course
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I enjoy your delvings. And I would submit that the answer to the question in your last paragraph is probably, possibly, yes.
Blessings
i AGREE :-d
OK, OK, so I cannot leave it at that. I believe in God, so I feel that is an absolute truth, but there are a great and vast number of other things about which I sit the fence quite effectively and many that have to do with the faith and belief issues it brings to believe in God.
Aside from the faith (Not LMF, but the issue of beliefs
) thing, I have scads of indecisive moments. I am sure you’ve heard the line, “well, we have to do something even if it’s wrong!” Many a choice made with this as the motivation, my choices and millions of others as well. I think you’re just being harder on yourself, because we all ‘think’ the things you have said, very well, btw. We just haven’t said them aloud or written them for all our fellows to read. 
You know what you are thinking as you make the decisions, and you do daily decide many things as Faith stated. You hear your inner voice (cue Twilight Zone theme music) but not ours. So dig on my friend, we’re all out there in the trenches with ya. Maybe at some juncture, our ditches will meet! 
hugs,
Deb
I love your last paragraph. Made me laugh out loud
Being able to see more than one perspective on any given issue, quite clearly, and giving your heart to neither…or being tempted to give it to more than one…does that make you a fence-sitter?
I identified w/ so much of what you wrote here. But I feel more like the field in which the fence posts are planted. I’m just sort of eternally pushing up grass and lying fallow. And that’s not really bad, either.
Push over. You’re not alone on that ol’ fence!
~Paloma