I love Saturdays. Something happened, a few months ago, and I started celebrating Sundays earlier and earlier— I’m back as far as Saturday morning now. In a few more weeks I’ll probably be Jewish.
We don’t know that our thinking is wrong until we do— we usually say this this way— better thought it might be to say instead that we aren’t wrong until we know we are, that makes more sense doesn’t it— that we are right, to think how we do when we do, until that moment when we suddenly become wrong to. From that moment on we pay per minute, the meter runs— even just when we are too forgetful, too ignorant, to notice what we know— we miss out on what we could have, had we acted as we know we now could; what we could have bangs us in forehead like the end of a plank, too high to jump to, that we could be walking on. So even when we fail to notice what we’ve noticed then; even when we are too slow to grasp how we could be better, we are ‘told’ about it, again and again, through painful things, discomfort, bad days, and probably back pain.
We learn to resist change in thinking, if we don’t make it, which is strange to me: that over time with practice our minds should better block out what they know they need I can only explain by some other essential mechanism’s side effect; it seems reasonable that learning from repetition should be more important here; although counterproductive in this case, we can defend its interaction, embrace and bemoan it; knowing that it is there, suddenly, empowers us to wrestle with it*; this takes the form usually of acknowledging to ourselves quite explicitly that the length of time for which we have held a belief (a frequently crucial shortcut metric in our decision making) cannot be considered in this case.
Once done, this allows us to try on the idea, two or three times quickly, as one would each pair of sunglasses when choosing from a pair of sunglasses, for comparison with what I must admit I’m intrigued by :)— life without this belief, perhaps. It should fit, if we are ready; I wonder if they almost always do, but it only seems that way. If it does not fit, ok, we, just don’t notice anymore, and won’t even think to look out for the plank the next time, should it not come in the same form as previously.
But if it fits, we modify, and via this basic operation all progress was/is/will be based. We might call it the addition of the psychic realm.
And as we modify, we test— we learn to test better and better. One test I’ll share again is that the truth should never hurt; if it does one simply is living wrongly and needs to change; exceptions of course need to be made for partial truths, or truths told incompletely, which can do untold damage**, about which we’ll of course speak no further. But in such cases we can group ‘our decision to tell’ the incomplete truth a life lived wrongly— applying other modifications we should be able always to find a way to tell the truth without harm if we are not doing what we shouldn’t. When we find the truth hurts this is an indication, not accidental, that we are making a mistake, and the only good option is to as quickly as possible change our living until the truth is no longer painful, then resume speaking freely always. I hope you get a chance to live this way if you aren’t already: it’s the best.
* I prefer to wrestle with it in others. You do too. Not because we’re avoiding analyzing ourselves, you relentless calvinist—because it works better.
**A quite specific kind — I don’t need this footnote, do i? nope
Ok, this is not nearly funny enough. It’s not funny at all! old school blog– have to post though, no excuses. Missed everyone very much. I was very ill.
