I’ve addressed this indirectly before, but it
merits revisiting. Ever been in a
discussion or debate on a topic, and the other party responses to your position
with, ‘but not always’?
I find that infuriating, right up there with
‘it is what it is’. Of course no
situation ever repeats itself exactly the same way all of the time, just as no
concept is perfect and encompasses all things, as life demonstrates; it is just
so self-evident a blinding flash of the obvious that it’s painful to respond. I
would so much rather just a moment of fresh, spontaneous honesty. Something
like, “you know I’m finished talking about this”. Sure as shooting we all have the right to our
opinions, even those ill-informed ones.
Yet, some continue to engage when they’ve little interest in informing
or educating one another on the finer points of a topic; even when it is obvious
that neither one is qualify as an ‘expert’ in a field of discussion. No, they want to be right; even at the cost
of resorting to meaningless propositions.
So then, why bother?
Like all great meatloaf recipes, there are
many contributing ingredients. In the
forefront is a rather simple formula that goes:
We draw meaning from our experience and so we equate our truth to mean
good, and everything that does not agree as bad. So, we have a personal investment in proving
our opinions as right.
I’ve
mentioned social dissonance before, but that body guard for the constructed
self, (our ego) is the culprit….again.
And it has a very profoundly simple work ethic. When something conflicts with what is believed
as right (as in the above), then the objection is either (1) dismissed as
untrue, unimportant, irrelevant to the world as it is known (and worse, the
person who thinks that does not deserve respect either), or (2) is ignored
entirely as pure fabricated fantasy to trip you up by a jealous and petty
competitor, (who does not deserve respect). Then lastly, (3) on the outrageous
possibility that just maybe some of what is being told that conflicts with what
you are certain is true, but somehow through magic or mysticism happens to become
true, in another reality perhaps, some day, then you’ll spend time later
considering modifying your understanding
on your complete and absolute comprehension of the topic at hand (even if
you’re sure doing so will only prove you are right and that the other person has
needlessly scared you and so doesn’t deserve any respect what-so-ever). In so
many words, retreat, delay, and save face from the unknown because it might
hold scary things you really prefer to not know anything about.
On the
path of maturation we all discovery sooner or later that we rely on other
people for a host of things. Services
that we cannot perform for ourselves; or tricks and techniques we can learn and
use to obtain other things we want. We
realize we need them; and in that moment we also realize that we have to figure
out ways to keep them friendly (helpful) to our cause, (us)…the continued
success of self.
So this
is a two pronged enlightenment. (1) we realize we are inadequate to provide for
our every need. (2) We must develop skills of cooperation with those who can
help us. Now the really sad part of the
first conclusion is that we are so very prone to assess ignorance as
inferiority. And that really is an
unfortunate assessment left unchecked.
Because it invites insecurity and low self assessment that leads to
worthiness and deserving issues and before you know it everything is going awry
and there’s a very messed up human being electing to be inauthentic in order to
hid from punishment. This fear paves the
way to violate who they are for the sake of being accepted and approved
of. There’s a saying that goes: “The psychological need to believe that
others take you as seriously as you take yourself has no particular negative
aspect; as psychological needs go. But we should always remember that having a
deep need for anything from other people makes us easy pickings” When we practice compromising who we actually
are, we are on that slippery slope of ever seeking someone to tell us what to
do, how to do it, and the worst of it is, remaining fearful if subjective expectations are not met. As if that isn’t sad enough, we then convince
ourselves that doing so is reasonable and defend the practice. From there on in, we’re too busy guarding our
masquerade with empty meaningless epitaphs that challenges facts in order to
keep our sacred and sanctified belief of knowing what the truth is, in all things, and always. And some say there is no hell.
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