 |
|
|
|
|
 |
(284 words)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
(187 words)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
(2625 words)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
(113 words)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
(230 words)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
(75 words)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
(91 words)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
(1990 words)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
(276 words)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
(717 words)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| <<<>>> |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Maybe May Be |
|
| Created by Decius at
| [+ favourites]
|
|
|
|
|
As humans we will often react to events in our lives that lead to a loss of that one undeniable constant: Logic. Conditioning, fear, and even repressed emotions can throw us into such a dissarray that we are unable to realistically weigh premises that lead to conclusions. It seems, during these times, that undeniable conclusions are exactly what we seek. Yet, it is specifically during these times that we are least able to be unbiased in our analysis.
Unfortunately, during these times, one feels similar to "drowning". This feeling is generally the result of one simple small doubt that was improperly analysed. It could be about anything, and during a weak moment. During these specific circumstances, a doubt is not questioned or thoroughly analyzed for one's own insecurities or fears bias the analysis.
Generally, the miss-analysis of this one doubt (due to biases in one's emotional status, environmental influences, or a lack of faith in self) then sets a precedent for other doubts. In other words, if this doubt is legitimate, then it opens the floodgates into a whole array of other doubts that were (up to that point) held in place by logic. This is where the "drowning" sensation comes in.
This is a very familiar sensation because it tends to be extremely difficult (if not impossible) for one to backtrack at that very moment and logically ascertain where the mistake was made. Metaphorically, it is as if a rush of water is pushing you deeper and deeper into a chasm, and you are desperately trying to swim upwards so you can close the valve that you mistakenly opened.
To further this analogy, once the drowning sensation is experienced without a successful rebellion, one finds themselves swimming in a pool of doubts that seem legitimate, even though they could all be based on one specific invalid premise.
For most humans, stopping the flow of water as it is rushing is nearly impossible. Self-loathing, insecurities, and a general lack of emotional support in this day and age makes it very difficult for one to catch illogical doubts as they enter the mind. Likely, if one were strong enough to do that, they would never have opened the valve in the first place.
And so we end up with a whole bunch of diss-illusioned people swimming in a sea of doubts that may or may not be legitimate. Why do we continue to do so? There may be a number of factors, all of which are not good for us. The reasons are most likely a combination of fatigue, lazyness, and a desperate desire to live life easily rather than righteously.
The problem with this method of existance is that innevitably the false doubts that you have now surrounded yourself with, that you now base your vision of reality on, will be questioned and/or outright dis-proven. Quite often people are able to shrug off such events as "unexplainable coincidences that will, if analyzed, still prove the doubt true". But over time, more and more holes will begin to present themselves in the unproven reality that one has become accustomed to. Not only that, but as one's strength grows, one also becomes more willing and able to be logical, even if he or she will suffer as a result.
How do you avoid having your doubts questioned? Easy. Surround yourself with an environment that constantly re-affirms the things you have assumed to be true. A majority of people one encounters have done just this. In fact, most people thoroughly fear being put in a situation where someone may diss-prove the things thay have assumed to support their method of existance.
But this is years into it. Most people who are in a situation like that are never going to escape it. In fact, most people who are in a situation like that will be questioning the validity of this article and are already trying to diss-prove its intentions or logic in an effort to protect the weak fear-based reality they have created for themselves.
But this article isn't stating that the reader exists in a reality like that. Nor is the article saying that if one were to assume a reality like that, that they would definitely exist in a false reality. But, statistically speaking, if one were inclined to react to fear stronger than hope, it is far more likely that they will assume doubtful things to be true over hopeful things. And if this is the case, statistically speaking, it is very likely that many of these doubts will exist because the person wants them to exist. Finally, if the person is then, in essence, picking and choosing what doubts they want to believe for the easiest method of existance to cope with one's environment, it is very likely that some of the facts they have chosen will be somewhat false, or entirely false.
So, assuming one is a person attempting to break free of such false assumptions, we now try to figure out what can be done to dig ourselves out of these things.
The first and obvious thing to do would be change one's environment. If one is surrounded by a static environment that may be influencing them in specific ways and re-inforcing incorrect doubts, one should change who they surround themselves with. One should attempt to place themselves in positions where their fears may be alleviated. Often, the biases we suffer are the direct result of the expectations of those around us. Without those expectations, the biases may dissolve. In this case, it would be extremely easy to question any and all assumptions, logically. Usually, being in a different environment will make one feel "free' as many of the fears and doubts they have assumed exist at a sub-conscious level, and "weigh" them down without their awareness. Without others' expectations of these doubts to exist in the individual, they tend to dissolve naturally.
The second thing one can do (irrelevent of the environment) is really dedicate themselves to the concept of logic. Logic has many definitions, but in defining it here we will state that it is "The unbiased analysis of premises that lead to conclusions". Additionally "Premises are described as conclusions themselves, based on previously accepted premises". In other words, everything one believes is a conclusion, and one believes it because of an event or information the person experienced or received that re-inforced that conclusion. Logic says that everything one believes is based on such events, and these events in themselves are the results of other events. So, to be completely logical, one must (to the best of their ability) analyze, unbiased, every single base event that has lead up to the conclusions they now believe to be true.
In essence, this is what one does their entire life. This could even be defined as the entire purpose of existance for someone that seeks to enlighten themselves, for once the past is completely logical, it becomes reasonably easy to begin to predict the future (since the future is a conclusion based on the premises of the past).
The difficulty is that we are human, and as humans we attach emotion to premises. These emotions prevent us from weighing them in an unbiased fashion. It is nearly impossible to weigh an emotional event in an unbiased manner, for there is no feasible technique of eliminating emotion from one's existance. Nor should one try to do that.
But given that we are all emotional creatures (some more than others), it is safe to say that those of us that were highly emotional at a time that pre-dated a logically developed mind are more at risk than those of us that had reasonably unemotional lives, before or after the advent of a logical mind. This is because during such times of emotional duress, we were not constantly protected by the embrace of logic. This also means that during these times, one very likely adopted doubts based on emotional fears, because in moments of confusion there was no certainty or escape. There was simply pain, which resulted in fear, which resulted in the need to eliminate fear. In attempting to eliminate fear, one adopts doubts so that one is more untrusting. Being untrusting, pain can never be suffered. But without trust, one can never experience the highs of being human as well.
Lets examine an extreme. Assume that one may attach an emotion so intense to a fear that it makes an unbiased analysis impossible. Lets assume we all have something in our lives, some fear that we have never, to this day, analyzed intelligently because we have too much emotion invested in it. Given this extreme, how does one possibly analyze it?
Lets use another metaphor. Assume you walk back and forth in a house filled with thousands of doors. Some are shut and some are wide open. It is our general tendency to always want to shut it or leave it open... never leave it "ajar", because then we don't know if we should walk into it or not. This uncertainty makes us uncomfortable, so one by one we decide to open it or close it.
Some of these doors are far bigger than others. That makes it much harder to open or close them. And in opening or closing them, we automatically reveal or block other doors, because the bigger door is so damn big. Not only do these big doors reveal new doors and block others, but they affect the luminosity of the entire house. That's right, they are that damn big.
So, if we are the type of people that want to ascend, floor by floor, we have to keep opening new doors. Eventually we will get farther and farther into the house, and find stairs and what not. But, obviously, if we go back and forth through the same doors, we're never going to ascend. We're just going to keep walking back and forth. This is easy, this is peaceful, this is unquestionable. But it is also unsatisfying.
Since we want to ascend, we have to keep opening new doors. But we're at a point now where we've been walking back and forth, opening small doors here and there, finding interesting paths and rooms, but no damn stairs. We want stairs. We want to explore a whole new floor, or at least more of this one.
And we see a door. We see a huge door that we never opened because if we did, we'd close off other doors. And we wanted to explore them. But now they are all explored. So we try to open the big door with all our might, and succeed, but don't entirely walk in because we're still not sure if we want to close off the familiar doors. So we hang onto the door, half open, but we tire over time and then it slams shut.
Okay, the door slams shut, we're exhausted, and now we have to go and re-open some of the small doors we had open before, just to resume our path each day. And each day we walk, we walk past the big door that is still closed, and we get angry. We get annoyed and tell ourselves that there's nothing over there. There's no purpose there. We keep telling ourselves that we can find another path, another way without it. But our anger only lasts for a while, and over time we forget the pain we suffered because of the door, and our energy re-fills. As it refills, our interest towards the big door piques again, and every time we walk by it we examine it more carefully.
Eventually, another day, we stand in front of it and want to open it. But we know we failed last time. We know we didn't have enough strength to hold it open while we examined both paths. So what to do?
Well, we push it open, which is difficult and as it tries to slam back shut, we put our foot in the door. That's right, a foot in the door. Then we peacefully examine the doors on that side, and the doors on this side, and we slowly grow confident in our decision to either open the door and close off these ones, or decide the door no longer has what we want.
So what exactly is a "foot in the door"? The foot in the door, logically speaking, is a "maybe". It means that given any fear, no matter how much pain was suffered, no matter how much we have to lose or gain from it, we should be able to ask ourselves "what if it was wrong?".
This sounds like more doubt, but it isn't. The reason it isn't doubt is that we aren't assuming the possibility for worst, we are assuming the possibility for best. We're saying that given any emotional fear we have, given any diss-trust or insecurity, we must always leave the possibility for our doubt or fear to be wrong. It could be right, but it could always be wrong.
The mistake we often do is assume a fear or doubt or insecurity, and then press our certainty of it. Why? This makes our gaze avoid the big door, and it prevents us from empathizing with the defeat we suffered. It also prevents us from worrying about having to close off the doors we use every day. There are so many fears that go along with opening a big door, for we don't know exactly what it's like on that side, but we do know what it's like on this side. But this side will be gone once we open the big door.
But no matter what we do, as our memory of that pain dissolves, so does our certainty in the doubt. Interesting phenomenon, eh? The only way this wouldn't occur is if we opened new doors that prevented the big door from opening after the defeat. This would somehow fool us into thinking that it was the wrong door to try to open. But this false confidence, like everything false, dissolves over time.
For those of us that are content with the doors we have and the floor we're on, there's no need to worry about past doubts or fears. The premises we have adopted thus far serve as all we need to sustain our lives in peaceful and happy ways until the day we die, walking back and forth through the same doors, sometimes opening a small one here and there.
Bur, if one is trying to get higher and higher, they must always use the "foot in the door" technique to examine old doubts or fears. They must always leave the possibility for their doubt to be wrong, for the pain they suffered to be unnecessary. They must leave a possibility for goodness where they saw cruelty, for selflessness where they saw selfishness, for praise when they saw insult. This way, it makes it possible for one to explore the plethora of doors on the other side, ones that may lead a person to greater happiness, greater confidence, and greater love.
One can never become infinitely intelligent following false assumptions, be them positive or negative. Just as we always leave room for the possibility of betrayal, we must give selfless love and optimism the same respect, and then use logic to decipher the truth. |
|
|
|
|
| Created by Decius at
|
|
|
