How we view our communication. House of Cards, House of Sands, in my mind is where it stands.

I am human. I make mistakes. Sometimes it takes a bit to notice them. Most of my mistakes stem from my stubbornness and the thoughts on subject matters that I have some knowledge. I suspect many of you have these same issues. In fact, I am certain of it as I verbally joust with some of you from time to time.

I have the same problem as many people. Especially those who research and have intelligence. I can be encounter so much stupidity and craziness in a day that when I encounter another intelligent human I might immediately be on the defensive due to expecting more of the same. I will tell you I do this far less now than I did in the past. I will continue to make mistakes of this nature and can only strive to get better at noticing them before they get out of hand.

So why write this? I can see some intelligent people out there that I respect that are struggling with this same thing. They are walking or standing on the edge of the same path I am trying to navigate to better myself. This all combines nicely with my strong desire to improve my own skills at critical thinking and to awaken this love of critical thinking in other people. The education system doesn't teach it. It can be addicting once you know about it, so my posts are often intended as seeds to show you my own introspective explorations of my own mind and perhaps toss some seeds your way that might help you out. In fact, if things go as I hope such seeds will grow differently in the environment of your mind than they do mine and you will hopefully be able to teach me new revelations as well as time passes.

We can become very fixated on our perceived reality. Depending upon how information is presented if it was not something we ourselves came up with we can be rather resistant to it. This is where things can get messy.

We can resort to defensive mechanisms and lash out at someone who did nothing to us except share potentially alien ideas we hadn't considered before. They are alien, so we must defend our mind from their corruption. I don't actually think such things, but the reactions I've had myself in the past and that I see other people go through make me think something like this is actually going on. Intelligence is no shelter or armor from this flaw. In fact, the more intelligent you are the more insidiously this particular problem can latch onto you.

Intelligence doesn't mean we know everything. It should mean we can handle new information and put it to use in interesting and useful ways faster than someone without intelligence. Perhaps we can make some odd connections between different disparate information. Yet, intelligence does not mean we are omniscient and know the secrets of the universe.

Somehow we often act as though we are omniscient and in our moment of ego expression we may attack a messenger who did nothing other than present us with something we didn't know, or in a way we hadn't considered.

Perhaps they say something as innocuous as "Yes, that seems right, but have you considered X which changes that?" and if it wasn't something we had considered do we STOP, THINK, and PONDER that new input or do we react with our defensive methods to some new alien concept that did not originate with ourselves? We do tend to bow down to the appeal to authority fallacy and if the person sharing new information with us is considered a known expert in the field of the new information our defenses may not arise.

The defenses kick in when someone we perceive just as a person presents us with a new idea. Who gave them authority? How do they know these things? Are they a scientist? Are they saying something in a field you have studied extensively but stating a different perspective you had not considered? Why did they think of it and not you?

These are all little subconscious thoughts (perhaps conscious to some degree) that may flash through our minds. Why? In reality, the person has given us a gift. It just takes some serious self observation and introspection to start noticing our own defensive mechanisms.

I can tell you now I struggle a great deal to not respond to ad hominem attacks (belittling, name calling, character assassination, etc) when they are used on me, or others. It is tough. I can feel the struggle. I was trying to have a civil discussion and someone decides to call me a moron, idiot, delusional, condescending, arrogant, racist, or some other ad hominem. I realize they are most likely doing it instinctually. I have done this before too. I likely will do so again, but I try really hard not to. I do think I get better at keeping it on a leash.

I wrote this as I've sometimes encountered someone doing this and managed to wade through the ad hominem barrage to see the moment something clicks and they realize what they did. This is an important moment. At that point something changes. The world becomes a bigger place. We become less prone to attacking any information that is alien as a potential corrupting influence. Instead we are open to interpreting and pondering new input and seeing how it may change our own paradigms and world views.

We have A LOT of intelligent people here on steemit. We are all going to enter into these frays. It is my hope that more and more people will begin to see the gift of exchanging differences of opinion for what it is rather than seeing it as an attack. I do think it will happen a little bit at a time.

None of us will master these things. We can only strive to get better at them.