The Rabbit And The Turtle — Part 3
So…now you can see it.
The speed, the stacking, the conclusions that arrived without their conditions. The difference between how knowledge is supposed to move and how it's actually moving around you.
But seeing it isn't the same as knowing what to do with it. Especially when it's coming at you with a name attached, and a side to pick, and an urgency that feels like a test.
So here's the part that actually concerns you.
You were never required to conclude.Not because the topic doesn't matter. It does. But because passing a verdict on a person — even a minor one — requires something you haven't been given yet. That's not an insult. It's just where the ceiling of your obligation sits. And no amount of pressure moves that ceiling.
Which means the person creating that pressure — however confident, however many quotes, however many students call them a sheikh — is asking you to carry something that isn't yours.
You don't have to pick it up.
"I'm not in a position to speak on this" is a complete answer. It doesn't mean you're soft. It doesn't mean you're protecting falsehood. It means you know where your obligation ends.
But now you're floating. Do you just freeze? Can you still benefit from whoever you were learning from? And isn't staying neutral just following your own opinion?
No — staying in your lane is not following your own opinion. Your opinion isn't what's doing the work here. What's doing the work is recognizing who actually has the standing to settle these questions, and then looking at what they're doing.
Pay attention to them:
The ones who actually have that standing — the big ones, not those whose students say they are big, but those who genuinely are — look at how they're moving on this. Are they stacking errors? Are they issuing warnings? Are they treating these people as something to be avoided?
Most of the time: no. They're not talking about it much at all. And when they do, what you find is leniency, offering opportunities to clarify, patience, slowing others down. A distinction between someone who is mistaken and someone who is an innovator. A recognition that errors don't automatically make someone what the loudest voices are calling them.
That silence, that leniency — that is a position. It's not absence. It's the answer, just delivered the way Part 2 described: slowly, carefully, without drama.
A student's connection to a scholar doesn't transfer the scholar's judgment. That's not how it works. The teacher remains the reference in major topics, like these. If they're quiet, so are we.
So until you learn enough to navigate this yourself — and that takes time, real time, a lot of time — the question isn't: who should I believe? It's: where are the ones I know are big on this, and what does their silence or their leniency tell me?That's within your reach. Right now. Without any of the knowledge you haven't built yet.
You can still benefit from whoever you were benefiting from. You can still learn. You don't have to freeze, and you don't have to pick a side that the biggest people around you haven't picked either.
Some things are supposed to stay open until someone who can actually close them does.
And the fact that they haven't closed it yet — is itself information.
You think they'd let you stay without needed guidance?