Challenging our default mode of being.
Continuing on with the theme of learning and thinking, it feels a very pressing topic that we’re currently fighting over – what to keep and what to do away with. A friend of mine, after reading my article a couple of weeks back, commented that “with age comes wisdom, and sometimes mould as well”, which I thought would be a perfect title for this week’s article as we navigate the challenges of utilising the wisdom of tradition plus the need for society to continually update itself.
“To confront our default way of life is not only possible, it’s necessary.”
A lot of people just come to accept what life is for them, and never really prod any further. I largely feel our default state is to ignore (or resist change), and there’s some utility to that as it keeps things manageable and certain for us. This air of predictability has served us well in an evolutionary manner. However, this puts us in direct contradiction to the nature of reality – change.
I find nowadays that, with our population becoming more overloaded with stimuli, this numbing to the state of ignorance is almost a coping mechanism. Generally, people now (especially online) have to really like or really be bothered by something to evoke a response. There will always be the case for and against change, but the solution is never black and white like a number of people want you to believe it is.
In this increasingly alienating, isolating, and fractionating world we seem to find ourselves in, challenging our default mode of being can feel like the last thing we should be doing. Sometimes, when the world feels like it’s falling down around you, it is any form of stability that you crave, and it’s usually at these moments when the opportunists spring forth to offer you fool’s gold at your most vulnerable. At other times, it’s the very thing you’re clinging on to that is preventing you from moving forward towards a better life.
It's a constant iterative process, updating the past with the future, and reconciling the present with the past. Much like how I’ve talked previously about the possibility of reconciling science and religion or reason and faith, doing so with the past, present and future might also be a bridge too far, but the beauty and nobility is in the attempt to integrate and we mustn’t lose that.
With the ever increasing polarity in people, and hostility or lack of compassion to those different from themselves, this can provide a bigger barrier to change than Trump’s wall on the Mexican border. I prefer the Dalai Lama approach in that we need to change minds through compassion – not by force – and this is done through dialogue and education, as opposed to just badgering, insults and mockery. In my estimation, constantly antagonising people makes them more (not less) likely to “dig in” on how they do things. How to deal with someone who thinks differently to you / holds different views…perhaps I’ll save for another article.
The whole analogy of “with age comes wisdom and sometimes mould” is that occasionally you might need to clean up your room. Our thinking can be a mess at times, and not only that, it can become rigid and stultified, to the point of actively doing you harm (and other people in your life). Also, there’s still a hell of a lot to be gleaned from those who came before.
“It's imperative to surround yourself with people who will tell you when you’re wise and when you’re “mouldy”, and those who genuinely know the difference.”
Most of our knowledge bank isn’t permanent or fixed – something might have been true 40, 60, 100 years ago, but it might not be that way now. We also may try some new ways and they might not work or have an even worse effect. Unfortunately, that is just the nature of being, or as Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard put it, “life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” Just because something is new doesn’t mean it’s inherently better than its predecessor. If it is, it should be able to demonstrate so.
All I ask is to routinely question whether you’re living life honestly and optimally, and are you making decisions on the best available knowledge and information through the use of true and accurate representations. A mature adult interested in personal growth should be willing to challenge themselves where needed.
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