I suppose the gold standard would be to start at the beginning. The problem is I can't locate the beginning.
I mean, there was a point in the past when things seemed to make more sense. The problem is that it didn't, not like in an absolute sense. There's always a point a little further back where things seem to make a little more sense. Did it, though? I think the world has only ever made sense within the framework of set expectations and seeing what you expect to see given those expectations.
I've just about decided that all of that is an illusion anyway. The sense that things seem to make, it's only within some limited framework that someone can convince you is true. Like the belief you perhaps had that your parents know everything and you can trust what they tell you to be true. That's more or less true. More in that they know more than you do as a small child. More in that most of what they tell you they at least believe to be true. There are all those exceptions though like they didn't know the answer and they didn't want to look it up so they just kind of guessed but you thought it was true until the point at which you realized oh crap I believe things that are wrong. That's a less scenario. Maybe that less scenario causes you to answer incorrectly in class and causes you some embarrassment. Maybe it's just some little thing you jenga into your entire big picture of the world. If it gets pulled out unexpectedly, or if you discover you need to pull it out, it's near the base, since you got it young, and perhaps the entire picture becomes unstable. So see, more or less.
Also there's a whole category of things they tell you that they know to be untrue as they are saying them, but they're maintaining the fantasy-- for your sake. An example of this might be Santa Claus. However, if you think about it, I think you'll realize it goes much much further than that. There are also truths your parents tell you about things that have to be taken on faith. Not just religious truths. Normative reality. Societal truths that might actually be true for you right now, but that you shouldn't expect to stay true if your conditions change even a little bit. No one really adequately explains the changeable nature of truth.
So since I'm not sure that I've ever really known what was going on, and I am highly dubious that there has ever really been a point which could conclusively stand as the point of beginning, unless I go back to my birth which would be at least my beginning, but I don't remember it. Maybe this is all a very silly windup to say that any beginning is purely arbitrary. Maybe that's just an excuse for choosing an arbitrary beginning. To-ma-to, to-mah-to.
