RE: Machinery of Freedom - Ask questions like a young child
Great post! I'm gonna believe it because I know/believe you're a smart guy, based on past experience ;)
But seriously, I seem to have a similar view. I try to pare away unnecessary beliefs, or make them tentative. I try to view the endless stream of information coming in every day as a stockpile of data to be used for coming to conclusions only when necessary.
Why do we feel the need to come to conclusions on issues that we have little control over, and no stake in? For me, it seems sufficient to just take in as many sides of the story as possible and let them stew. In my experience, it's more efficient to let the subconscious process and integrate information, rather than trying to do it consciously. Answers and ideas seem to magically appear when I need them, augmented by conscious reasoning, the voice in my head accessing the invisible information.
How does this work? I don't know. I read some things here and there about neuroscience, and it's all very fascinating, but ultimately I don't need to come to a conclusion about how it works, since I'm not a neuroscientist, or neurosurgeon who needs to come to some conclusions before they cut open someone's head and peek inside.
Thanks @kendewitt ! It's kind of funny. Here we are a good 30 years after our first meeting (er, confrontation), and I can still clearly see you demanding that I leave the stupid rope ladder at Lincoln Elementary. laughs
For some reason, I'm almost always out of my head, analyzing what is going on and trying to objectively look at the facts to form an unbiased opinion, as if that were possible.
I do my best work after sleeping once my subconscious has had a chance to process inputs that I was not aware of. Way too often I awake in the middle of the night with answers to questions that I never thought to ask while I was conscious.
Maybe that is why you have always resonated with me. From fighting imagined ninjas in tabi with bokken in our back yards as kids to considering what lies just beyond our perception and how that has bearing on the stark reality we are faced with each day.
Rope ladder? I have no recollection of that whatsoever. Was that at the reason for our argument on first meeting? Whatever disagreement we had as kids must have been discarded from my long term memory as irrelevant to forming my opinion of you. Or, the number of favorable inputs negated the one isolated negative input lol But I believe you, as I remember being pretty obstinate when we were kids.
This post is doing great man, I'm glad I convinced you to get onboard!