I didn't See That Coming

More than once I have had people apologise to me for asking hard questions.  To be honest though I have always liked being asked hard, honest questions.  I have not always known the answer but I have never been afraid of a question or shyed away for it because it was difficult or I was concerned I would not like the answer.
There was an article I read recently that was written by someone I would not normally read that I think stated something beautifully.  “That afternoon in the mountains did not suddenly replace one belief with another; it planted a question that refused to leave me. And questions, when they are honest, are not gentle. They disturb. They linger. They ask you to look again at things you once accepted without hesitation.”
I happen to believe there is a real freedom in letting go.  Gone are the days of clinging to something because it is the accepted given or because the lack of thought is convenient. There is no doubt in my mind that sometimes the questioning of what I have held to can be confronting.  That is particularly true when what I have held to I see contains flaws I can no longer honestly dismiss.
Being honest with myself can be embarrassing.  Again I reckon it was put beautifully by someone I was reading. “At first, I tried to hold on to what I had always believed. It is easier that way. There is a kind of comfort in certainty, even when that certainty is built on incomplete truths. But the story of [….] kept returning to me. Not as an argument, but as a presence. A simple, undeniable contradiction. And slowly, I realized that if I was serious about understanding the world, I could not ignore it.”
There is much I could highlight in what I read but there is only one other passage I would like to quote. “There were moments that stayed with me, not because they were dramatic, but because they were disarming.”
I love that.  To me the greatest freedom is found beyond the difficulty.  What may have been a hard truth becomes a hard fought truth that proves to be a firm foundation of life and of living.