Sugar Words

How can you actually be delusional? Does that mean having faith, and if so, what does faith even mean? As someone who is very cause-and-effect oriented, if you’ve had a chance to speak with me on certain subjects, I will bring up data and the sequence of events. But on the other end, if you were to talk with me about goals and ambitions, you would find that it is not always a question of if, but of when. I did not know this was an interesting dichotomy to carry until someone pointed it out. And there were events in life that left me jaded for a short period and made me question the anatomy of faith.

What does faith truly mean? Epistemologically, it is something that goes beyond empirical evidence. To put it simply, knowing something to be true when you cannot back it with data or reasoning. Which is easier said than done with our monkey brains, especially if you work in an analytical field and a regimented environment. So let’s dissect this even further.

When we say we have no evidence for something to be true or possible, we are thinking of data, or of anyone around us who has done it, which means we are drawing entirely from the past. But if you want something in your future, something that has never happened to you, how can you realistically produce data for it? The visionaries in the venture capital world who made fortunes were the ones who could let go of data and the status quo, imagine a new reality, and hold it as true, which is how we got the Ubers and Airbnbs of the world. The world reorganised around what they created, not the other way around.

Now you will say, okay, I agree, but there should be a well-crafted path, a step-by-step process, right? I hear you. So please indulge me in an analogy. If you have never been to Iceland, how will you know how the breeze feels there, how the cobblestone sounds underfoot, how the roads twirl and swirl, and what hidden places you would discover because you spoke to two locals who handed you an itinerary you would never have found on the internet?

If that’s still not convincing enough, I hold onto the knowing that I am but a speck on this earth. If you want to feel this, go stand by the ocean or look down from an aeroplane window. And knowing that actually makes me feel better. Because it means I cannot possibly know every way things can turn out. My conscious self simply does not have the capacity to track, notice, and act on everything around it. Which then becomes a reminder to walk back down memory lane, to the times things I wanted came to me, and when I trace it back, it’s a shoulder-shaking moment, because there was no way I had imagined it would work out like that. The how was never how I thought it would happen. So there is your evidence: all the times your ambitions have been fulfilled, and how you could not have pencilled it out step by step.

Then faith is less about believing beyond empirical evidence and more about the fact that you are looking for the wrong kind of proof. This is not a singular case but an aggregation of how this world operates, and there is proof littered everywhere. The evidence is right in front of you: your life, up until now. So why are you looking for a tiny ziplock bag that will tell you the next step, when the proof is already pointing not just one step ahead but ten?

To put it more poetically, just because Google Maps, your current tools, does not show you the route does not mean you cannot reach the destination. If you keep staring at the map, nothing will change. You have to sit in the car, turn the ignition, and see where the road takes you, what roads you find, what people you meet along the way, all the good restaurants you discover.

Faith is enjoying the process of discovery so much that you don’t even realise when you’ve arrived. It’s like a “who blinks first” game. When you’re too focused on not blinking, you miss the deep brown of the eyes in front of you and the little freckles of light inside them. Which is also when you get most easily distracted by the loud noises of the world around you.

Faith is to be on your own team.