Tag Archives: thinking

Smart and wrong

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I didn’t track where on social media I saw this, and so I can’t give credit where credit is due, but I wanted to share.

It was a video of woman sharing a discussion with her husband after she said something like, “I thought I was smart, how did I not know…”

And her husband said, “You are smart…”And then he went on to define smart in a way that she’d never thought of:

A smart person is wise enough to know when they are wrong and will change their mind.

What a great definition! I think that too many people take opposing views as if they are dichotomies, and don’t realize that different views are on a spectrum. As such you can move your views (or have your views changed by good arguments) and that doesn’t mean your whole identity is now different.

Smart people recognize when they are wrong, change their mind, and move on. It’s not a polarizing thing, it’s actually a wise thing to do. If you find that you are always right, are you learning anything new? How smart are you?

(Don’t answer that unless you are willing to change your mind.)😜

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Update 9:36pm: Just came by this and had to add it to the post:

The impediment becomes the way

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I’m re-listening to Gary John Bishop’s book, ‘Unfu*k Yourself: Get Out of Your Head and Into Your Life’, which has a very stoic approach. One quote that speaks to me from the book is from Marcus Aurelius:

“The impediment to action advances action.
What stands in the way becomes the way.”

On a positive note, the obstacles to learning can become the impetus to new learning, like this example from a student at Inquiry Hub… where a roadblock to continuing a project led to new, creative approaches and learning.

But often the impediment or obstacle becomes the block to new learning, or new approaches, or different, better ways of doing things. The impediment becomes the way, it becomes what you do, or rather what you do to avoid change, or worse yet what you use to define yourself. “I can’t” becomes the mantra, the limiting thought that makes not changing, not improving easier than doing what’s best. “I’m too tired, too lazy, too fat, too stubborn, too ‘insert-excuse-here’ to change. You continue to do what you did before, or you try something new, but decide that what you are already doing is either easier or more comfortable than the thing you had hoped to do. What stands in the way becomes the way. Inaction becomes the action.

This reminds me of one of my favourite quotes, attributed to Jerry Sternin, but I read it in ‘Surfing the Edge of Chaos‘.

“It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking,
than think your way into a new way of acting.”

We often convince ourselves of things we should not do, we talk ourselves out of trying new things, and we limit ourselves by thinking something is too hard… we think our way out of acting differently. The reality is that we are quite good at that. Our thoughts themselves become the impediment. The trick to overcoming this is to act… to actually start doing regardless of the thinking. Start small. Start really, really small but start to ‘do’ the thing we want to do. We are far more likely to achieve our goals if we act our way into doing them rather than trying to convince ourselves that we can do them.

Our thoughts can impede us, or our actions can push our thoughts forwards so that the thoughts (eventually) follow our actions.

“It’s easier to act your way into a new way of thinking,
than think your way into a new way of acting.”

Otherwise, the impediment to action advances (non) action.  Start small… but start now.

A quiet mind

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While we don’t sit in silence very often (yesterday’s post and one from 2022), we also don’t sit with a quiet mind. Our ‘To Do’ list, obligations, and plans fill our mind with things in the future rather than the present.

The idea of stillness eludes us even when it’s quiet. The notion that we are fully present escapes us. A happy experience? Let’s take a photo to remember it. A pretty sky? Let’s take a video. A beautiful walk? Let’s plan our next meal. We seldom stay in the moment.

Maybe it’s just me and my monkey brain. My brain that tries to meditate and spends its time wandering. I want to wonder but I wander. I want to be quiet and still but I fidget internally as well as externally.

I want the gift, the present, of being present. I seek the now and not the future… Not the thoughts of what’s next, what I must still do, and what I should or should not say to someone not currently with me. Imagining future conversations, or worse, past conversations and how they could have been better.

A quiet mind is not an empty mind, it’s a mind focused and aware of the now. It is not in the past or the future, it is in the presence of the present. I will meditate after writing this. Meditation must come after writing or I’m even less present as I think of what I’m going to write. Even then, my mind will drift, I will accept it and understand that refocusing is part of the process, it actually is the process. But I long for the quiet, the stillness, the moments where I’m fully present.

Perhaps it’s that very longing that prevents me from getting there. The desire to be more present is a desire and want of something not in the the present and thus something I can not seek without being less present. It’s the paradox of letting go: the more you try to let go, the more you are holding on to something… the less still your mind is.

Sitting in silence

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We almost never sit in silence anymore. Music, podcasts, tv, social media, and even humming or singing to ourselves, we fill the silent void.

There is no room for boredom, no space for quiet contemplation, no moments of solitude. Only noise, distractions, and attention to external inputs. What can we fill this quiet space with? What can we pay attention to? And what else now?

Sit in silence for a while. Sit with your own thoughts. Let them linger, let them settle. Let them get past the sensation that you should be doing something, anything but this. And breathe.

Sit in silence for a while.

Going Meta

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If I was going to give this post a subtitle it would be, ‘How do you know that you’re smart enough to know the difference?’

Just to be clear, I’m delusional. But guess what… so are you. The world we live in and the world we think we live in are two different things. We don’t see the world as it is, we see it as our senses are capable of seeing it. Then we go further and apply our individual perspective to add meaning to what we observe.

I say think of a dog, and I guarantee you that you aren’t thinking of the same dog I am. Not the same kind, not the same size, probably not the same disposition… which might be different in our perception even if we were thinking of the same dog.

So we live lives of illusion and delusion, except most of our delusions are close enough to each other’s that we don’t think of each other as crazy… Most delusions. Although, maybe less of them than at any time in recent history. Because now more than ever people seem to be seeing the world in vastly different ways.

So what can we personally do? We need to get meta. We need to think about our thinking. We have to start from honest awareness and seek to debunk ourselves, to figure out how we are deceiving ourselves. We have to see the frame we put around things. Observe ourselves, (the observer).

This meta self reflection is most important when we talk to someone with a different perspective or world view. It’s so easy to see the bias of others, and much harder to see our own. Yet this self reflection is essential.

A wonderful example of this is looking at the growth in numbers of people who think the world is flat. It flabbergasts me to think that this number is actually getting larger. How is that possible? Flat world views. That is to say, people are asking one question, looking from one central position: ‘Show me the curve… I’m on earth and I can’t see it. You must be delusional and gullible to believe it’s round, when you can’t see it.’

Only then, and from that biased position, can someone make jumps to conclusions like NASA is trying to fool us, and the conspiracy to fool us is suddenly everywhere. Then evidence that fits this world view suddenly starts to appear. Except it doesn’t.

No, what actually happens is that these flat mindsets start to create excuses for everything that doesn’t fit this world view. Never mind that civilizations like the Mayans, 4,000 years ago, understood the movement of the stars and probably already knew the earth was round. Never mind the view of earth from the Apollo moon missions. Never mind simple science experiments that have been around for hundreds of years proving the earth is round.

All that said, the flat earthers start with an observation, or lack of observation of a curve. They are using their senses, that are basing the criteria on their view of the world… their delusion.

That’s an easy example, because there is a lot of evidence debunking a flat earth. But there are a lot of topics where one perspective isn’t so clearly wrong. There are arguments on different sides of the political spectrum, different sides of a global conflict, and different sides of hot topics where the perspective someone, the perspective you, take is not necessarily the clearest. Suddenly our delusion is potentially working against us.

If we aren’t willing to go meta and really look at where our view is coming from, we are susceptible to flat world views. We can get stuck in a single delusional frame of mind where we don’t see what’s really happening, what a better perspective might be. And so just like the flat earther, we only see the issue from a perspective that we can observe, but isn’t correct.

The irony is that the more humble you are, the more likely you are to be able to go meta and see other possible perspectives. It seems that being humble is a key ingredient, because a lot of smart people struggle with this. Religion, politics, and culture all seem to undermine intelligence, and smart people get lost in dogma. Even scientists can do this. It’s not about how smart you are, it’s about how humble you are.

Are you willing to recognize other views? Are you able to let go your ego and really observe an issue from a different perspective? Are you willing to change your mind? Ironically if the answer is yes, you probably don’t need to get meta as often as others. It’s still useful to do though, both to solidify your own view, and to change your mind.

Left unsaid

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I was having a conversation with my daughter yesterday and I mentioned a podcast I was listening to with Dr. Daniel Amen. The point I shared with her was how Dr. Amen talks about killing ANTs… Automatic Negative Thoughts. My daughter liked that idea and added something she has been working on, which is, “Don’t let a positive thought go unsaid.”

I really like this idea and think I’m going to work on the same.

How often do we complain about bad customer service, but we just appreciate good customer service, yet leave those thoughts unsaid?

How often do we get frustrated with a loved one or a coworker who doesn’t do what we expect them to do, but don’t really value them when they do a little extra?

How often do we focus on ANTs, but leave our positive thoughts unsaid?

Internal dialogue

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I find it interesting how the voice in our heads can be so loud. Sometimes it’s like we live two different lives, one in the 3-dimensional world and one in the ethereal space between our ears. Both lives playing out simultaneously and each distracting ourselves from the other.

Sometimes they sync and we become a singularly focused person… both lives becoming one in moments of joy, love, anger, or gratitude, as examples. But often those are high and low moments that draw our mutually focused attentions. Most of our lives they seem to be in minor conflict with each other, fighting for our full attention.

I like the moments when my internal dialogue is quiet, and more focused on being present in the physical world, but there are times when this seems impossible. There are times when the internal dialogue is a complete distraction from reality, in a full on battle for attention. When I’m in this space, the internal dialogue usually wins. These are times that I’m more comfortable being alone than in the presence of anyone. Yet, I don’t feel alone… I’ve got an internal voice keeping me company.

This is neither good nor bad, this is determined by context. If I’m thinking of something dark or gloomy, it can be a bad headspace to be in. But if I’m deep in thought and excited about some new learning or ideas, or if I’m creating or writing, then I could be in a fantastic headspace.

My internal dialogue is like a second world, a second life that lives inside my head, and can be on a continuum from fully engaged in the physical world to almost fully ignorant of my surroundings. Both extreme cases can be wonderful, but it seems I live most of my life balancing the two worlds as best as I can.

Reasons and reasoning

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This is a humorous ‘contrived platitude’ that I shared on Facebook 8 years ago. It came up as a memory and I wanted to share it again:

Things definitely do not always happen for a reason, but we are reason makers and sometimes we seek meaning where there is none. Belief systems are designed around the justification of reasons, around faith as opposed to evidence. So are things like tarot card readings, conspiracy theories, superstitious habits, and lucky charms and rituals. Truth is bent, patterns are found where there are no patterns, and narratives are created to justify and satisfy, and even ‘prove’ that coincidences are actually consequences and that reasons are founded in good reasoning.

Sometimes these fabricated reasons help us. “Everything happens for a reason” can help soften an unexpected tragedy… help us find meaning in a meaningless loss of health, life, or limb. We can muster strength and purpose in times of hardship. But other times it’s nothing more than ignorance. People follow doctrines and justify their beliefs even when they are harmful to others. This is somehow done in the name of love. “We are looking out for what’s best for you, for us, for our community”… A fabricated reason. A justification. A delusion.

There is a big difference between finding a reason and good reasoning. That doesn’t mean that seeking out a reason for something is necessarily bad, it just means that sometimes the reasons you think are important or useful may not be so. It’s easy for us to rationalize anything to fit our belief system, but if that’s what we are doing we really aren’t being rational… we are rationalizing not reasoning. There is a difference between making sense of the world and making things up to make sense of the world; a deference between making up reasons and using good reasoning skills. True wisdom is knowing the difference.

Bridging metaphors

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In a conversation with Joe Truss yesterday, we were talking about bridging metaphors, and how they connect ideas in ways that simple comparisons do not. It occurred to us that the idea itself of a bridging metaphor is a metaphor… the word ‘bridge’ takes the physical idea of a bridge and transforms a relationship into something more tangible to understand.

The world is filled with metaphorical bridges. When we make a transition we often use a bridge metaphor of ‘crossing over’ or taking us from one place to the next. Or we find bridges as meeting points in arguments or negotiations.

Whether we are ‘meeting half way’, ‘not worrying until we have to cross that bridge’, or building bridges between people or ideas, we are using the bridge as a metaphor. We are constructing a way to get us over a challenge.

In many ways the idea of a metaphorical bridge is more powerful than a physical bridge. We yearn for metaphorical bridges. A perfect example of this is the discrepancies between Newtonian Physics and Relativity. We seek the bridge. We want to know why the math for each do not mesh and we want that unifying theory to ‘bridge the gap’. We seek bridges to make sense of the world, of relationships between people (connection and communication) and ideas, not just geography.

The biggest challenge we face in the next few decades is that of bridge building. It seems the terrain is getting tougher to pass rather than easier. Countries at war, religious beliefs fostering hate, political parties not willing to show any sign of cooperation, of ‘meeting part way’.

As a species we seem to spend more time tearing down bridges than building them. We need to change this. We need to be metaphorical bridge builders. We need to construct ways of getting over the challenges we face. We need to support ideas that bring us closer together.

((And in case you missed it, bouts of the last two sentences are bridging metaphors.))

Lateral Thinking

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Like I mentioned yesterday, my dad passed away leaving hundreds of boxes to sort through. Today I found a few with memorabilia and one specific one I was looking for with a diesel fuel formula he invented. Most of the other boxes were files with copies of patents and research my dad collected. Although, there were also quite a few boxes with some strange topics he also ventured into.

As a self taught generalist, my dad was always taking ideas and combining them, and he wasn’t afraid to delve as deep into ‘wu wu’ science as he did into ‘legitimate’ research. He had a knack for seeing connections where others didn’t.

So it was no surprise when I found these periodic tables where he was identifying the elements that were prime, double prime, and Fibonacci numbers, and looking at their isotopes.

This is the kind of thing my dad did. He would think laterally and make unusual connections that would be completely missed by anyone else… and the reason they would miss it is because there isn’t a logical connection.

My dad developed a CRO/REDOX process to chemically extract platinum and other precious metals from catalytic converters and recyclable computer components. He actually got a test lab built and proved the technology, while scientists at the Ontario Research and Technology Foundation (ORTECH, now ORF-RE) said it couldn’t be done, and even after it was proven said, ‘This shouldn’t work’.

But like many things, my dad had a different angle, and in this case a different perspective on the chemistry behind the process. And when he built the prototype, he made it modular so that he could expand it rather than rebuild it. For many reasons, including terrible timing with a stock market crash, this project never got off the ground.

The ideas that my father combined allowed him to be extremely creative and innovative. He was brilliant in the connections he made. Yet that same ability was also a disability. My father was also an end-of-the-world prepper, and followed a lot of conspiracy theories.

The same lateral thinking that made his scientific mind so brilliant also created lateral (read more as sideways) connections to far out conspiracies that kept the ideas alive long after others had moved on. Among his boxes and boxes of printed patents and research are other boxes with articles that I would describe more as delusional rather than just ‘fake news’. In fact these articles date back as far as 2004, long before the term fake news existed.

I think the internet broke my dad. He was a doomsdayer since the 80’s. After we watched World War III, a miniseries that aired on NBC on January 31, 1982, he turned the TV off and had a heart-to-heart with his kids. He basically told us that WWIII was inevitable in our lifetime. I remember getting upset not just that the world was going to end, because at 15 I believed everything my dad said, but also that my younger sisters were crying as he broke this ‘news’ to us. Why did they need to know this at those ages?

It got really bad with Y2K, that’s when he started ‘prepping’, storing food and collecting thousands and thousands of dollars worth of supplies. Supplies we now need to get rid of for pennies on the dollars spent. But what really made it worse after that was the internet. Dad found all kinds of websites that he considered reliable, some of which where known Russian propaganda sites, but that didn’t phase my dad who believed all kinds of conspiracies about big media. Now I’m not saying that big media is fully trustworthy, but I’d put more weight on them than on Russian propaganda websites.

So lateral thinking was both a blessing and a curse for my dad. Making incredibly insightful scientific connections made him a brilliant scientist and inventor. And making incredibly dubious doomsday connections made him a paranoid prepper, who always believed ‘the shit is going to hit the fan’ at any moment.

There is a fine line between brilliance and madness.