In Search of the Truth: The Professor Porter Method
Hmmm, perhaps I can say thank you by paying it forward.
One of the few things Iremember from my college days, 40+ years ago, is a concept learned in an Interpersonal Communications course. Itdescribes three ways we view ourselves: 1( The way I see myself 2) The wayothers see me 3) The view I have of how other people view me.
These three views areconcentric circles that overlap in one small area. The area of overlap is thetrue nature of who I am. That is a valuable concept in itself. But the value ofthe concept of concentric rings, and where the truth lies, became foundationalin my life in a bigger sense.
Two years of collegetaught me some stuff and got my nameon a diploma which indirectly got me my first job. But I felt dissatisfied withmy education. I wanted to learn to think critically and analytically so I couldmake up my own mind about important things.
And so, after a brief timein the working world, I quit my job and enrolled at York University determinedto train my mind. In those days, liberal universities like York encouraged andchampioned independent thinking. I fear that value has been lost.
In my second year atYork, I took a literature-based Social Science course taught by ProfessorPorter. I am not sure what attracted me to the course. But I do know that itwas the best decision I ever made.
Professor Porterassigned essays based simply on a few paragraphs from the book we werestudying. Think about it. Wonder aboutit. That is all the direction he would offer. It was frustrating and manyof the people in the class never grasped what he was doing.
But I did what ProfessorPorter asked. I dissected the passage line by line and word by word and, in sodoing, discovered untold meaning in it. Professor Porter later remarked thatwhat he was trying to teach us was a methodof inquiry – aka developing our intellectual capacity to look beyond thesurface and discover the underlying truth.
It was the most valuablelesson of my young life and became part of how I conduct my life. I am findingthat skill to be particularly important in the circumstances in which we arecurrently living.
We are bombarded with informationfrom many sources – particularly the media and social media. Concentric ringsof reshaped information circling around the truth and obscuring it in theprocess. Other people’s version of the truth coloured by their wants and needsand sometimes greed.
If we want to find thegrain of truth, we have to be prepared to pick apart the layers surrounding itusing our God-given intellectual capacity.
Think of it like theRussian Nesting Dolls at the head of this post. The tiniest doll is the puretruth. The bigger and bigger dolls that swallow up the tiny one are the layersof biased interpretation, and sometimes manipulation, which hide the grain oftruth from us.
In retrospect, ProfessorPorter was one of the most influential people in my life. I wish I could findhim so I could thank him. Alas, that will not likely happen. But I can honourwhat he taught me by paying it forward.
Thinkabout it. Wonder about it.Keeping going until you find the grain of truth. It is more than worth theeffort.
~ NowAvailable Online from Amazon, Chapters Indigo or Barnes & Noble: HuntingMuskie, Rites of Passage – Stories by Michael Robert Dyet
~ Michael Robert Dyet is alsothe author of Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel whichwas a double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’swebsite at www.mdyetmetaphor.com .
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