all models are wrong
some are useful
For years, I’ve had a sticky note on my desk that says, “all models are wrong – some are useful.” Some math guy wrote it so maybe it’ll speak to you. I use it as a reminder to approach my work with practicality. But I saw it the other day and thought about how it’s also a concept to reconsider most of my assumptions — the things I assume to be true — about life, myself and the world.
When I reflect on you with my knowing, I can see how your feelings for me were likely genuine. But you also seemed uncertain of yourself and what you value. And even now, you seem to give your power away to other people who decide those things for you.
While it’s obvious to me that you hold your power, I can’t blame you for being convinced that you don’t. Most of us are taught to seek external validation rather than query our inner guide. We conform because we want and feel need to be liked. Because being liked is essential to survival. It’s an instinct that’s socially reinforced. I can’t think of a single person who’s truly free from this dynamic.
To me, the worst part is we’re convinced it’s right. So we end up teaching it to others.
Models are useful, but we, as individual souls, are not even close to machines, abstractions or replicas. So why do we pretend there’s a correct template for how to be your human?
When I fell in love with you, it woke me to a level of clarity I hadn’t experienced before.
When I looked within, I knew the love I felt for you was true. It’s maybe one of my greatest truths. I felt it in my soul — not the one I was told I should have, but the one I was. And the reasons I was telling myself that you were too good to be real or things wouldn’t work were all rooted in fear and conditioning. Externally, I was being told that I was wrong for what I wanted and bad for what I did. But because I’d woken, it was like telling me that I was wrong for existing, that I wasn’t good enough as I was and that what I desired didn’t fit the acceptable social standard.
I’d been told variations of this, for x…y…z, my entire life. But after I’d experienced unconditional love within, I knew those things aren’t said in love.
That’s when the illusion cracked for me.