I Want To Write My Random Thoughts And Feelings
The only person in my life who I have frequent discussions with about worldly affairs is my father. The most common topics that come up from time to time are things like race, politics, philosophy, etc.
To me it's interesting how, in general, people have so many obvious gaps in their thinking, and how completely oblivious they are to these gaps. It's not that people are necessarily wrong with what they believe, but they leave out so many important equations in their analytical skills. And it's these equations that help us further understand things, instead of just settling with the first thought or impression that enters our head.
Settling with the first thought or impression that enters our head is one of the most common flaws that people have with their perception, and you see this a LOT. There are many examples of it. If you're ever able to predict where a certain line of argument is going, there's a good chance that the person in question is just following a pattern of thought that they haven't fully scrutinized themselves (and don't want to scrutinize - at least not consciously).
The building blocks of our thoughts are arranged in such a tightly-knit, tightly-constructed fashion, that people don't even realise that their idea of the truth is just something they repeat to themselves over and over again. If it sounds true, feels true, and is believed to be true, people will pass up the opportunity to ask deeper questions about their truth - because those deeper questions really have no place in the minds of those who only want definite answers on things. But the truth is often a lot more complicated than we think it is, and paradoxically... it's also a lot simpler.
Topics like race and politics conjure up so many strong emotions in people, and there's obviously very good reasons for that. Whenever there's something terrible that's happened in the world - be it a murder, a tragedy, or something morally offensive - people immediately interpret those things according to their own emotions. The immediate consequence of doing this is that we will literally ignore and deny every other possible explanation and reason for why something actually happened, particularly if they don't feed our emotional appetites.
One of the most common issues I always seem to have when trying to explain human behaviour, is that whenever you can provide an explanation for a person's motivation - why they *actually* did what they did - it's only ever seen in one way and one way only: I'm trying to excuse the person's behaviour; I'm trying to gloss it over or sweep it under the rug; I'm doing my absolute best to avoid calling it "as it is"; I'm trying to avoid reality.
People get stuck on the "what" and the "how" of human affairs, and they come to believe that an entire subject (or issue) can be summarized and understood by only focusing on these two things: the what and the how; what happened and how did it happen?
But the most vital question - the question of "why" - is left completely off the table, as though it were irrelevant. Completely not important in any capacity at all. In general, people seem vehemently opposed towards doubting their own knowledge, their own certainty on things. The question of "why" symbolises unfamiliar territory to us. It's untested; unverified; and uncertain. But asking why is the only thing that gets us to think outside the box of our usual thinking, with no recourse from our emotions and our biases - things that skew and damage our perceptions.
Unless we're bold enough to ask why, how can we ever say that we've truly understood something? When cars break down and bridges collapse, we need to know why they broke down so we can rectify the problem, and to prevent them from breaking down again. And when humans go astray with their behaviour and turn to violence and corruption (as is often the case), we need to be willing to ask why this is actually happening so we can at least try to get to the bottom of the core underlying issue(s) at hand. It does nobody no good to point fingers and condemn - even if we think people deserve it. It is literally the least helpful, least difficult, and least constructive method that a person could possibly resort to. And yet, you see this manifest itself all over our planet, collectively and individually...
[....]
Etc, etc...
To me it's interesting how, in general, people have so many obvious gaps in their thinking, and how completely oblivious they are to these gaps. It's not that people are necessarily wrong with what they believe, but they leave out so many important equations in their analytical skills. And it's these equations that help us further understand things, instead of just settling with the first thought or impression that enters our head.
Settling with the first thought or impression that enters our head is one of the most common flaws that people have with their perception, and you see this a LOT. There are many examples of it. If you're ever able to predict where a certain line of argument is going, there's a good chance that the person in question is just following a pattern of thought that they haven't fully scrutinized themselves (and don't want to scrutinize - at least not consciously).
The building blocks of our thoughts are arranged in such a tightly-knit, tightly-constructed fashion, that people don't even realise that their idea of the truth is just something they repeat to themselves over and over again. If it sounds true, feels true, and is believed to be true, people will pass up the opportunity to ask deeper questions about their truth - because those deeper questions really have no place in the minds of those who only want definite answers on things. But the truth is often a lot more complicated than we think it is, and paradoxically... it's also a lot simpler.
Topics like race and politics conjure up so many strong emotions in people, and there's obviously very good reasons for that. Whenever there's something terrible that's happened in the world - be it a murder, a tragedy, or something morally offensive - people immediately interpret those things according to their own emotions. The immediate consequence of doing this is that we will literally ignore and deny every other possible explanation and reason for why something actually happened, particularly if they don't feed our emotional appetites.
One of the most common issues I always seem to have when trying to explain human behaviour, is that whenever you can provide an explanation for a person's motivation - why they *actually* did what they did - it's only ever seen in one way and one way only: I'm trying to excuse the person's behaviour; I'm trying to gloss it over or sweep it under the rug; I'm doing my absolute best to avoid calling it "as it is"; I'm trying to avoid reality.
People get stuck on the "what" and the "how" of human affairs, and they come to believe that an entire subject (or issue) can be summarized and understood by only focusing on these two things: the what and the how; what happened and how did it happen?
But the most vital question - the question of "why" - is left completely off the table, as though it were irrelevant. Completely not important in any capacity at all. In general, people seem vehemently opposed towards doubting their own knowledge, their own certainty on things. The question of "why" symbolises unfamiliar territory to us. It's untested; unverified; and uncertain. But asking why is the only thing that gets us to think outside the box of our usual thinking, with no recourse from our emotions and our biases - things that skew and damage our perceptions.
Unless we're bold enough to ask why, how can we ever say that we've truly understood something? When cars break down and bridges collapse, we need to know why they broke down so we can rectify the problem, and to prevent them from breaking down again. And when humans go astray with their behaviour and turn to violence and corruption (as is often the case), we need to be willing to ask why this is actually happening so we can at least try to get to the bottom of the core underlying issue(s) at hand. It does nobody no good to point fingers and condemn - even if we think people deserve it. It is literally the least helpful, least difficult, and least constructive method that a person could possibly resort to. And yet, you see this manifest itself all over our planet, collectively and individually...
[....]
Etc, etc...
31-35, M