Au Natural

Warning: The following is another deep and naked swim in the seething sea of existentialism, and mental goofiness. Proceed with caution. When it gets too much feel free to surface and hold your head above water.

If you don't know by now, I'm a deep thinker, but I'm also a deep feeler too. I guess it comes with the territory of being a highly sensitive person (HSP).

When I am logical and focused on science and evidence (where I have to be to stay 'sane'), eventually I hit a point where I am saddened by the state of things.  Humans and humanity seem hopelessly unable to change for the better, being wired to be believing meat machines who think, and so many seem trapped in some really bad beliefs and delusions that on the whole are detrimental to the planet, and to us all living together peaceably, without the rampant over-consumption, greed, one upping (covet wars), waste, division, and fighting.  

In this state of mind I despair and become depressed and feel powerless to change something that is so badly broken and seems permanently wired (intransigent) in most people ... but the good news is that I don't need to change anyone but me... Good grief, what a relief!

 I want to hope that somehow we'll figure it all out, hopefully evolve, if we don't snuff ourselves off the planet with our dismissal and inaction on climate change, and eco-losses, biodiversity loss, and other scientific facts about reality (denial of evolution comes to mind).

I absolutely love animals (and, yes, that classification includes people, like it or not, you're an animal) and all life.  It makes me extremely sad when I think of the collapse of much of the ocean's ecosystems, the beautiful reefs dying, and losing much of the biodiversity in many of the planet's remaining natural habitats, and in the process the larger animals who live there; the gorillas, tigers, elephants, rhinos ... on and on and on.  

7+ billion people cannot continue living on this planet and consuming and behaving like the modern model of consumerism promotes.

Hopefully technology will save us.  There are some extremely brilliant people at work, trying to solve the problems of our impact on the planet.  When firmly in this head-space, I want to solve the problems in my human nature, and promote environmental awareness.  I want people to change their lives, and think and behave according to the truths of science, and primarily, according to what we know by cognitive science.  If you don't understand how your brain is wired to deceive you and how it causes you to think and behave badly, how can you expect to really fix it?  You are just going to be stuck in a bunch of error loops your whole life unless you seek to address the root problem.  

The first step is to realize that your brain is not as great and logical as you would like to think it is.  You are not naturally a brilliant streamlined thinking machine that collectively and objectively logs and records everything with perfect precision and accuracy ... who subsequently feels.  You are a lumbering feeling machine that thinks and recollects selectively.  Your thinking is the public servant (defender) of your feelings.  It lawyers and defends them.   Many religions teach that we are born broken, incomplete, fallen, etc.  We are.  The natural human brain is severely flawed.  People are usually okay when their religion tells them that, but they bristle when science shows the same thing.

If we define diseases of the mind as a spectrum and as the thinking and behaviors that slow or stop us from making our lives efficient and functional on a basic level, then almost everyone is mentally ill by some degree. We're born that way.  I hope that by being candid and open about my mental illness (hsp/bipolar) I can help show that it is really nothing to be ashamed of, like any other organ in the body it is prone to issues and breakdown.  Mental health is just as easy to lose, and must be maintained just like physical health. 

The mind aligned toward belief and intuition is sometimes very divergent - belief based thinking is often divergent, but it is also convergent when balanced with truth.  Ironically, religion will never make us one - science will, and I believe (and Know) that science will show us what religion has been dancing around all this time, like a pow-wow around a campfire. We have always  known the simple truth of creation (but maybe that's another blog).

But science sucks at speaking the transforming language of love and hope that every human (well most) needs to hear. Many people view science as cold and without heart and humanity.  This is the weakness and failing of science, it's lack of  expressing things in a spiritual and emotionally meaningful context - but every principle of science IS spiritual, and has a spiritual corollary.

Science is reductive, looking at things compartmentally and isolated.  This is not how the universe is.  Science is small picture stuff, important stuff, but it deals with limitation, and compartmentalization.  It ignores the bigger picture, in sweating the small stuff (yet important stuff). It gets stuck within the finite limitations of the physical world, and bounces off the borders of the paradoxes at the boundaries.

I question "emotional" knowledge because I know how fallible it is when we let it run the show, and defend it with or rational minds - this is the natural human state.  When I'm in my safe and sane zone I have to seriously keep that animal in check, maybe even dismount for a bit.

"Reasoning can take us to almost any conclusion we want to reach, because we ask "Can I believe it?" when we want to believe something, but "Must I believe it?" when we don't want to believe. The answer is almost always yes to the first question and no to the second" - The Righteous Mind 

I dismount from my lumbering elephant and retreat to the safety of logic and science, and what can actually be known and proven.  In this state of mind I seriously begin to doubt god and the validity of those profoundly expansive and deep spiritual experiences when I'm "manic", hyperconnected and "god" is talking to me, and I have visions, insights, etc...

Somewhere in the middle there is truth.  It is so hard to hang on to the middle when you are being pulled so strongly in both directions.  The force feels like I can imagine the gravity of a dense black hole, pulling me apart as I struggle to keep it together.  In a spiritual vision I saw that I was once recently a black hole and before that the innocence of ignorance sacrificed (a child).  It all may be metaphor, but felt so strongly as if to mean something profound.  I think we all must sacrifice the child within as we mature to handle the pressures and obligations of adulthood.  If we look back at our beginnings, beyond the gametes that made us zygotes, we all came from the void of possibilities, into a gradual state of growing consciousness.

"The natural (hu)man  is an enemy to god."  or as Romans puts it, "A mind governed by the flesh is hostile to the laws of the divine and cannot abide them." Actually I quite believe that one, which may seem odd given my tenuous belief in god.  In our natural state with our broken ape brains we are an enemy to god, at least good, and love, and most of all truth.  We all suffer from delusions to some degree, and the smallest delusion carries the strongest degree - crack that one if you can. I think we have been following the wrong god, the one made by humans to manipulate and control other humans.

I believe that we naturally rise to the level we can handle.  I believe that although the natural man is an enemy to god, the natural man is also attracted to good, more than evil.  Love more than hate.  Peace more than war.  I believe the world will beat the natural man right out of you if you let it - once each person tires of argument, fighting, war, death, destruction, dysfunction, etc.  Some people never will in this go around, maybe quite a lot won't. That's OK. We all act according to our understanding, we are all acting natural. 

Whatever will be will be.  My life will be guided by hanging on to love, and hope as I ride this wild and scary ride.  The perspective of safety on the edge is what makes for a good thrill, even the potential of terrible terrible loss, spikes a rush of adrenaline - good adrenaline if you feel in control.  

If it is loss, I lose, I'm gone.  
There is no me that carries on.  
If that so be I'm fine just Ron.  
And Ron is best when holding on, 
to both sides equally with both hands.  
This the most stable form of natural man.  
And gripping both sides I better see 
the wonders of infinity, 
and at every point there is a me, 
a tree, a bee ... 
an Earth spinning held captive but free.   
Love and hope is my gravity.  
Being pulled between poles extracts the best of me
like arms stretched out and nailed to a dead tree.  
A torture endured best lovingly.  
I am sacrificed so all might be.
I am a naked natural man 
hanging from a tree.  
And being Ron 
I brought it on, 
no need for sympathy. 
If the world's not ready now, 
I'm sure to come again. 
Hopefully some day 
I can stay 
and hang out a while with friends.  
And as I hang with thee
maybe you will see 
all that's good in me, 
my divinity.  
I know that I AM 
and with this see 
the me that I truly AM in thee.
For as I AM, you ARE too
and best we can hope is our best to do

If you let it, the world will transform you for good - seek the good, seek understanding over offense, Seek Love.  True love, which I define as compassionate understanding and acceptance, even if at a distance when disparate to your Ch'i.

When you see what I see (if such is ever possible between two minds) you will see that we are all one, everything living and everything giving life.  It goes around in infinite endless perpetuity and you are there at every point in one way or another.  I AM eternal progression.  I am alpha and omega, the beginning and the end.  I am that high and that brought low. And every end is a new beginning and every beginning will have its end, which can be a mixed bag dependent not so much on the journey between, but the attitude and aptitudes of the traveler.  And you can say all this too in humble self affirmation, because I see the divine in you, as I must due to the commonality of our humanity and DNA ... and we are truly one in the context of it all in comparison to all other states of life and being - we share the delights and pitfalls of being human - together.  Find your natural go(o)dness - be good.  If you cannot believe in god, seek love and hang on to hope and rise toward it.

I think it would be a shame and disappointment on grand scales if after all our struggles together and against each other throughout the recorded history of human life on this planet,  that after all of it we FAIL to understand and realize the strength of our unity.

I say all this "religious speak" knowing that each individual is beset by personal beliefs of one sort or another, and each defines god against the backdrop of how they would define their best character, or what they can percieve a "best person" to be.  So at each perception there is a unique personality that collectively describes and defines what we would wish god to be ... I say wish it, and manifest it in yourself.  Be your best person.

When people say they don't believe in god, knowing that such is typically a mental cheat for describing one's assertions of their divine, of their best self, I can't help but hear a bit of self doubt, maybe even loathing, and I hope to help this heal in them by saying, "Well then, believe in yourself, and it is the same."

As you seek your bliss, you will find (if you're paying attention) the things which block it.  You will rid yourself of all the behaviors that do not bring lasting happiness, and that mire you in addiction. Addiction to any one thing is getting stuck in it and letting it control you.  There are all kinds of addictions.  My mind as it ebbs and flows and sways to and fro has a tendency to get stuck within a certain limited view.  When I am manic I feel unstuck, but I've learned to manage it with a lot of tethers, because if I get too unstuck I start living and thinking out of context.  Context is my tether.  

Un-tethered I know I am god, not GOD, butt god, nonetheless - okay, maybe quiet-sum and the less in my current incarnation.  I have many moments lately with deep feelings and impressions that I have been all things (even Stars and Black holes)... and the prevalent view that all things are and expression of God, even me. I know this may sound quite kooky to some.  And if it makes you chuckle I'm glad for that.

I have a recurring dream where I was sacrificed (thrown away from everyone) as an innocent child to fulfill the demands of justice. I was torn into infinity as I was cast into a black hole to be destroyed for my crime of ignorance. My crime of curiosity.  I imagine that I became that black hole and that sacrifice of innocence began this galaxy and universe of division, which will culminate as it grows to reconnect and gather itself back into its true form, we - everything, not me Ron, but We GOD.  The universe is growing in complexity as are we. It is expanding and rushing away from itself. Yet I feel that as the comprehension of the spheres increases the expansion will reach the outer boundary and stall in a static state before it then makes the travel in the opposite direction (imploding back to a singularity. We are evolving back, each to our god and oneness (internal and external). We are on the edge of comprehending something heretofore incomprehensible. 

This is your story too, or some version thereof. And I love hearing the stories of others...Because we are one. Knowing this I cheer for you and tear for you, and hope you win exactly what you want - your best wishes for you and yours. 

That which I find in me is also in you, and vice versa.  You are divine.  Seek your divinity and pray to god to find it ... and be prepared to follow your innards as you are led, even into the most scary territory. 

I am the last child... at least as my dreams and my experiences continue to show me. There is little self aggrandizement in that space as a god. Being so I am willing to be led to further realization and growth. But I have a sneaky feeling that the child has the best view of all creation - I know my children have awakened my love for this world as we play and imagine, and hate to turn it off at night, waiting for another day to play.

Outta Sight! :Poem

Outta Sight!

In one thing there are many.
In many things there is one.
Just like simple hydrogen
isn't all that makes the sun.

I see me in everyone,
and everyone in me.
All that grand and beautiful,
that too terrible and ugly.

As I explore I try to ignore
all the things that lock the doors,
that keep me trapped, or on all fours.
a victim of the nevermore

You are truly beautiful
despite all of that ugly,
rising out of weakness
you find your purity.

And if I can help you find it,
it too, you must know I see,
as I point out the doors you've locked,
so terrible and ugly.

I pray that brave each day you'll be,
to search out on your ring of keys,
explore each door for what's locked inside,
detached from ego, without pride.

And once these dark caverns you're inside,
ignite your best lantern or flashlight.
Like tiny stars that light the night,
you are stardust filled with light.

Be sure of your divinity
enough to face your fudge,
and find entwined a deeper mind
with which to better judge.

Understand the ugly truths,
harder more than those called good,
for these doors you won't explore
expand your mental 'hood.

There's nothing truly evil
if we quest to truly live,
and shed the ignorance of hate
of ALL things 'negative'.

And you'll find the sweetest song
is singing how much you were wrong
to hate the darkness and the night,
because it brought you full, upright.
In finding wrong you have found right
and all things that were outta sight.

You too true are outta sight
and this my focus when I see you
I find your locus as I can be you
We are one, wrong and right
... and being wrong is outta sight!

Desire Amplifier: Poem

I aspire
to all I admire
and feel a desire
profound to acquire.

The one qualifier
for that to transpire
is that I enquire
and be an applier.

The trier must try
and be tried by the fire,
mired in muck
and stuck by the briar.

Let the tears roll,
suck your fortifier.
Call a ceasefire
and string your barbed wire.

Peace pacifier
that great rectifier
gives new resolve
in you now entire.

Shout advance with a choir
and beating drums dire
swelling higher and higher.
Intensifiers!

Plug in your wire
to your amplifier.
Now strum to become
a dream occupier

Oh yeah, and make sure you tuned it first ... Oh, it is? ... Um, well, keep after it!

A funny note: After I'd written this poem I was reminded of a funny story. I got my first guitar and amplifier at the age of fourteen. I would play it loud and long in the basement in all its distorted poorly tuned glory. A few neighborhood women performing periodic visits with my mother complained to her that it sounded like I was torturing a cat, and she should maybe consider getting me some help

Oh, and on subsequent visits they also complained that I could not sing either, and for the love of all that's holy I should stop doing it -  hilarious!

Deep Rising: Thoughts & Poem

At the very bottom and depth of it all we are creatures of hope. I have hit the bottom of my present abyss and now I slowly, calmly rise back to the surface for air ... if I am not careful I will continue in my ascent, becoming airborne. 

I am a creature that must seek comfort and ease, both in water and in air. Watch me fly. Watch me soar to great height and depth in both mediums. As a fish fears open air so does the bird the lack of it.  Hope is in the air. I sink to depths so compressed, and heights so expanded as to remove it almost completely.  At these extremes of the mind killer I remember hope. I remember to conserve the breath of hope, to find my depth, and breathe in context. 

Breathe. 

Soar to the highest heights and lowest depths of Hope. 

Return. 

Breathe again. 

I am renewed. 

In this life I hope to die a thousand deaths, for in each rising I am more. In each rising I see that I AM.

Deep Rising

I do not fear the deep
I do not fear the darkness
There's beauty in the black
and wonder in the starkness

Tiny light of hope's bearing
a guiding pole of starlight
leads me in my daring
and orients me upright

Magnetic fields and frequencies
I can feel, alive, a buzz in me
full of pain and ecstasy
the highs and lows make wrecks of me

I've gone so high and deep in song 
You knew not how far I was gone
Gorging on the surplus
I keep my tether at the surface,
a bobbing head that looks like Ron.

I hope some day to do it
without even letting on.
Swimming in the current
like a salmon off to spawn

Then, maybe then
They will leave me to my own
to find my zany zen
or bury my favorite bone

I have found my soul
within every animal
the cycles of life, and eternity
I have lived them full

This is what I know, alive resides in me
As I'm rising from the deep
Death holds not my energy
I AM just waking again from another sleep.

Mr.Flip Side

When I look in the mirror I see someone trying very hard to be me, but close inspection proves it's just a poser,  taking the reverse position on everything I am ... maybe I can learn something from him.   I'll call him Mr. Flipside. 

Actually, in greek mythology wisdom is often portrayed as female (Metis and her daughter Athena) so I feel my wiser self has a female component as well.  I definitely benefit from the solid judgment my wife provides when bouncing ideas with her, and she grounds me when I'm flying high; she's like the string of the kite, or the attraction of the Sun.  She helps keep me in orbit as I'm flying off in space.

Within my internal dialogue are two people, my true self, along with a sparring partner who bounces back my blows of "wisdom". Let's call him Mr. Flipside ... or better, considering that last wisdom nugget, Mrs. Flipside (and they keep trading places!). She is a loving mentor and guru who forces me to face things I may not want to consider. The reflection of your views that clues you in to "Look into the other side of that argument/position!". She is critical, but most of all she is my best friend and I love her, because she loves me and pushes me to be a better me - more like her, or at least more perceptually flexible, and contextually aware.  And I like to think that my him helps her her too.  :)

If you're really good, you can learn to be an unbiased judge sitting between these two entities as they lawyer their cases. Remember that a proper judge listens equally to both sides of the evidence, without bias, and carefully considers each side's case before rendering judgment.  This is the Trinity in Me.

We see many things as an exclusive OR, when really it is one big AND, and that by degrees. Nothing lives in exclusion. Hate is exclusive. Hate creates nothing but death and isolation. The truth is truth in context, and if you are able to perceive the entire (infinite) context you will then perceive absolute truth. The trick is to comprehend the infinite, as we struggle to cast off ignorance, and listen inside a perceptual context without being absorbed by that one point of view.  The infinite can be understood within each snapshot of eternity if you possess the key to perception, which is very simple (but that's another blog, and it's here too if you dig ;) ).

I like this sense of the word ignorance, as we chose to ignore the things we'd do best to explore. Ignorance is isolating (cherry picking) the truth - listening only to the truth that calms and comforts you. In this sense ignorance is intentional, self-preservational. You cannot ignore something you are unaware of  (the other oft held meaning of ignorance). And sometimes your ignorance is just being rude with the truth.  A lot of ignorance is believing you are right exclusively, so much so that you hang on to the error that is currently keeping you grounded. Let go - fly my pretties, fly!

So often we miss or dis-miss the flip side, because doing so helps us stay happy in our ignorance, to stay in our comfortable context, and in many cases ignorance is bliss.  This bliss has some scientific names, a few being confirmation bias, the backfire effect, and blind side bias.  We seek to confirm the things we like and are blind of our own biases.  It's natural to ignore, dismiss, or miss the flip side, because by definition it contradicts or weakens our ideas. But your ideas and perception (happiness) won't be complete without doing so.  You will end up stuck and wrong in your own flabby echo chamber of non-resistance, the comfort of non-conflict.  Learn to flip yourself off, or out, at least every once in awhile.  Luckily there are good kinds of ways to flip off, 'flip out', and even over.

Most people are familiar with the concept of "fear of failure", the inhibition of trying new things for fear of making a mistake ... but what about the suspicion that we might be living a mistake? Now that's a scary prospect, to find out that you're wrong about something you have lived by for such a long time, something we have attached so much to that we feel letting it go, or even questioning it threatens everything we hold dear, and we'd rather instead cut off a limb or gouge out an eye.  So that suspicion is buried - in a "doubt your doubts", "stay in the boat" mode of autonomic reflex. (Anyone who knows me knows I LOVE the water and all things in it - you can never keep me in a boat should the opportunity to swim, snorkel, and scuba be present ... but you can take me places I love with your boat.)

Quickly covering that suspicion with avoidance and dismissal (searching for reasons why not) inhibits us from considering alternatives, trying new ideas, changing our minds, or looking outside our current ideology.  We are afraid to be wrong because being so will force us to abandon a few ideas we're so in love with.  To me, being stuck on this flipside, is just as halting to our progress, if not more so, than simply being afraid of making new mistakes.  If you knew the truth you would discover that you are free to explore so much more. There is much more to explore, but you have to be willing to open Pandora's door full bore. :) 

It's also very easy to tire of Mrs. Flipside, and desire to send this devil's advocate back to her personal hell, and stop her from making our lives one as well.  A personal hell is living where the stakes and uncertainty are high and where we cannot be allowed to close the door and enter our echo chamber of certainty.   When uncertainty is high maybe it's best to avoid making any decision at all - it's completely okay to say, "I don't know, I may never know".  I don't know also allows you to stay open minded and out of either chamber (remember the third party within your personal trinity?). 

This was/is a hard one for me - I'm terribly curious and want to know everything.  If you tell me I can't know something I'll want to know it even more.  Sadly I have realized that possibly there are things I can't know, at least from one side or the other.  I strive to stand astride the sides, and my flipsides help me do it. Sometimes I get a bit stuck on the dark side. But this flipside also counsels us in these cases, by telling us we cannot know something unknowable that we claim we know, possibly that we're jumping to unsupportable conclusions. I have learned to love the darkside, and have discovered that I was born from it - it was my beginning ... but don't let that scare you.

Not allowing ourselves to gag Mrs. and Mr. Flipside is very hard indeed, especially when she's so verbally gifted, full of love and wonder and imagination, and has a very long memory (this is the darkside). And he's so deep and profound, with graphs and charts and great logical proofs and examples (this is the light side).  

Gagging the opposition and entering our echo chamber is clinging to isolated 'truths' that are not completely true, and doing all kinds of mental dodges to protect them, because somehow the 'truths' we are protecting have made us comfortable.  Sometimes we realize that there are problems with our hypotheses that we call facts, but we continue to defend them because we have so much invested.  We surround ourselves with like minded people, and unfriend, avoid, or block people who don't agree with us. In my book, these are the true jerks, but they're only knee jerks. This is the best way to create an echo chamber where we only hear what we want to hear.  This is tuning your ears in one direction. This is being a jerk. :)

The best way to avoid the echo chamber is to maintain a healthy flipside, both in your thinking and in your associations with other people.  Seek out and associate with ideas and people who are different from you.  And most of all be tolerant and open to consider and try to understand their point of view.  If they offend you, step back and consider why - look deeply at yourself and see if that offense is really just a defense, some form of protective mechanism surrounding your own(ed) beliefs.  

In all things seek understanding over offense.  Offense and mockery may be simply defense mechanisms keeping you from exploring ideas. 

Never disparage someone for trying to win, or having an over driving need to be right - channel it. We should all fight to be right, and your best opponent is yourself and the ignorant things to which you cling. If I appear rude or direct I am just fighting my need for you to be right (at least this is how it feels to me when I'm "in it" with someone else).  And my right is outta your sight, as may be yours out of mine. We are serving as each other's Flipsides in an outward fashion, like two galaxies trying to share their truths and how they're constructed, but this method of dialogue is the most ineffective, because each side fights their from their own, to the death, and entrenchment quickly occurs (one of my favorite concepts is of two galaxies intermingling. We are on a course to do such with Andromeda). 

'Right' is relative IF I/you keep in mind that you are in the right space for you right now, and allow yourself to be right in your comfy space, while bravely looking and listening to the bombs exploding outside your foxhole. But sometimes space is tight, as it is increasingly becoming on this planet. Learn to share your space with those who need it, or occasion it.  Be a good host when people wander into your space. 

No one likes a prick in the ass, especially the ass. The important thing is if YOU are really trying to be right by truly investigating all the ways you may be wrong. Sometimes it's a lot more pleasant discovering the wrongs in others, or sharing your wonderful discovery of wrong with others who do not want to hear it (guilty). 

If you practice the art of the edit you will become a brilliant writer, as so with many other endeavors. Editing (correction) is improvement and progress, within any chosen activity. Love seeks correction, and love best leads it. I'm sorry if in my ignorance, spawned by frustration and fear, I temporarily lose that most important thread - love and understanding. I love so deeply it hurts, and in that love I hurt others with my impatience and frustrations, thinking time is of the essence (as it is in one aspect), fearing people are stuck (permanently) in a miserable construction of their own making. When in reality, they love the home they've fashioned (mostly). Part of my is refinement is learning the art of the edit within personal relationships - since discretion feels so much like lying to me (another blog).

If I know you, and you know me, please know that I love you with the deepest depth when I am in my right mind. And please suffer the child in me who foolishly tries to help you in your struggle to hatch (another blog). Each person needs to struggle within their own shell or they will not acquire the strength and skills the experience is meant to give them. But it is sad to see the things you love struggle, and even die. 

The depth of me in both my sadness and my joy pierces the universe pole to pole, and in it I realize the divine. I have been shown repeatedly that this was one of my states of consciousness - being the driving force of a black hole, and realizing that divinity. You are part of that divine. Struggle to be right (improve), no matter the pain. If you don't win or can't get out, you can try, try again. Editing and correction is a practice best done from the inside out, like the chick's struggle from its shell. If you cannot cast off the things which confine and smother you (much like the earth is being smothered now), and give up the fight within this opposition, you will wither, atrophy, and even die (We all may die in the Holocene mass extinction event if we don't get our shit together soon). But with my eternal eye I spy that to die is but to try again. I AM eternal, as are you, and we are rising as one.

Another way to flip is to let go of the need to be right, or to always get it right.  Learn the value of being wrong, and the joy of its attendant humility. Enjoy being wrong, seek to prove your ideas wrong - If they're right they will withstand the scrutiny.  If they're wrong and you want to believe they are right, so much so that you avoid challenging them, or investigating clues that they might be wrong then you will be wrong and clueless to that fact - this is ignorance acting as knowledge.  Most truths we find from error are simply refinements of past (incomplete) information. 

Hands down the best (most efficient) way to be right is to be open to being wrong, and to celebrate it.  Every time you are wrong you have just discovered something true. Learning is an act of discovering something we didn't know, not reinforcing what we believe already.  In this sense it will always involve being wrong and admitting error or ignorance - not typically fun.  Kids are experts at learning and growth BECAUSE they and society cut them some slack on getting things wrong.

We all make mistakes, some more than others.  To those, who like me, do more of it, allow me to share a secret for improvement - Editing.  Editing is the practice of "proof" reading and looking for and catching mistakes or flaws and either removing or improving.   Editing is a process of refinement, looking for flaws and fixing them, looking for a better way to effectively and efficiently communicate an idea, and injecting fun and creativity in the process. Consistently done it improves performance and first drafts.  The best writers (and comedians) are those who have learned to edit...or who have good editors (writers).   In that sense, Mr. and Mrs Flipside could be thought of as my editors. And keep in mind, only the most adroit get it right the first time - most of us have to do rewrites.

I find myself continually editing, and ask why?  I guess because I feel that editing (correction and clarification) is the best form of repentance (improvement/refinement).  But it may be a push for perfection, a need to be irrefutable, and a need to be right.

To speak is to tell a lie - to speak well is to ask forgiveness. - Oh be Ron-Ken Obi :)

Because humans can be so easily wrong or fooled, I want to make sure that I am not fooled as much as possible.  I understand the huge propensity of the human mind to err in judgement.  There are scads of ways your mind tricks you into wrongheaded ideas and perceptions.  It's a hard thing to believe that our brains don't work like we think they do - it's hard to believe that there are flaws in us, in our very nature - but there are. We are not as logical and rational as we like to think. Humans like to believe that we're brilliant rational and logical thinking machines, we're not. We're believing and feeling machines who think ... mostly to rationalize our beliefs and feelings.

I also believe that if you seldom seek to correct errors you cannot expect to improve (yourself or what you're involved in).  Over correction feels fake and pretentious, e.g., forcing grammatical correctness over functional communication, or using big words when a small one will do just fine.  But if you are aware that you have bad grammar or a weak vocabulary DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! ... especially if it makes you insecure when talking to people and sharing your ideas.

Editing and being mindful of mistakes and inefficiencies is a good practice to perform in all aspects of your life.  This is how we learn, by paying attention to mistakes and how we are doing things wrong... and the huge follow up - seeking to correct them.

As you seek to know what is true you will find a whole lot of contradictory information.  It's a hard thing to know the best places to look, especially when you are coming from a paradigm with a lot of false biases.   You will have a strong inclination toward things which only confirm your views.  Fight that inclination; read a book about something you don't want disproven - that should set you back a bit, and hopefully start a wonderful adventure of investigating hard truths.

"Reasoning can take us to almost any conclusion we want to reach, because we ask "Can I believe it?" when we want to believe something, but "Must I believe it?" when we don't want to believe. The answer is almost always yes to the first question and no to the second" - Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind

Finally, the truth is a tricky thing indeed.  We like it in tidy compartments. As long as we keep it simple it is easy to describe, as we start to spread out our thinking it becomes a lot more complicated and we run into contradictions, ironies, and paradoxes. Know that perception and reality is at its core a paradox.  You can go insane as a moth chasing that light.

As with life, truth is approached elliptically. There is no circle of truth.  It is not even perfectly "circular" with the two points becoming a singular focus. It is stretched over two opposite points (foci) some distance from each other. It is continually moving, orbiting its target of attraction, and it cannot be stated or exist full stop without falling from its orbit. Every observation of it must be enclosed with ellipsis ... But, however, and, also, in such conditions, appears to be, etc.  There is often an etcetera, meaning further things to be considered, on most statements of truth, especially those made certain.

So allow me to get you started on your wonderful journey, by introducing you to your Mr. Flipside - Have Fun Together!

Learn to flip yourself off.