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!
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.
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