Belief: The Subsequence of Thought

“I believe in you”. Commonly said when trying to encourage someone. Much stronger than, “I think you can do it”, which breeds uncertainty. Why? Beliefs are usually grounded in unexplainable faith about a situation or a person. To think or to have a thought stems from what has been or what is currently being perceived, that is what a person understands about a situation. When you believe in someone you might think it also comes from simply a thought or knowledge of that person but it is more than this.

For instance, your brother is a UFC fighter (Who you’ve seen train time and time again), before he goes into the octagon you say the famous words, “I believe in you”. His opponent pulls up too and they announce his stats. They’re more impressive than your brothers. You may think his opponent might win but do you believe in the opponent's ability to win? No, 'cause you don’t know him. Belief is more than just a thought, there’s an emotional investment to it. This is also a reason you hear the sentiment ‘I believed in you’ when you let someone down. Their calculated trust in you isn’t solely based on what they think you can do.

Look at these two questions: “Do you think there’s a god?” Versus “Do you believe in god?”. The first gives the possibility to deny existence while the second assumes an existence and questions further trust in such an entity. Belief will always require more.

What then makes up belief? Emotions? Trust? Love? Maybe a combination of all.

Belief is a scary thing because it goes beyond reason. Once you get someone to believe in you, to trust in you, they can be manipulated. Belief can also be used as a tool through institutions like religion and government to manipulate the masses. The scary part is that what the leader(s) say doesn’t have to make logical sense. As long as they have won the people’s trust they can do as they please with minimum opposition.

Although beliefs are stronger than thoughts, thinking is the one way to defeat beliefs. You just have to think of a way to reason with the person's emotional side or prove that the trust they had in that institution was based on lies, if it in fact was based on lies. Meaning when someone trusts you it is based on what they’ve known you’ve done. If they found that out to be false that trust goes away. It doesn't even have to be false, it just has to be disproven.

Beliefs can also be a strong thing. I believe in myself. That is more powerful than, ‘I think I can do it’. But as I mentioned before this belief has to be based on something. You have to build trust in yourself by doing the things you think you should do. Trusting yourself builds confidence in who you are. But be careful, too much reliance on your own abilities can make you crash hard when something out of your control happens in life.

Belief can be used to get people to do things for causes they currently can’t understand or ones you don’t want them to understand. It acts as a barrier to further thought, which is funny because it takes some amount of thinking to get to belief. Maybe belief protects us from the anxiety and fear that comes from these things we can’t understand, the unknown. Maybe it’s a tactic to keep us from things they don’t want us to know. Whatever the answer may be, it is an active decision you have to make. Belief at its core is giving up reasoning that comes with previous thoughts, even if the belief was built on these thoughts. It makes the statement, “You have followed me thus far, understood my ways, and found me worthy” and finally asks the question, “Will you follow me once more, even though this step surpasses your understanding?”.