Reconciling our Differences

As I drifted off to sleep last night, the last thing that lit up the space between my ears was the idea that 'the purpose of getting on in the world is to augment my ideas of the world and reconcile them with all that I see around me.' When I woke up, I realized that maybe that line would make a good line of poetry for some beret wearing coffee drinking pretentious little people...Sorry about that. All adolescent bashing aside though, it has brought up an issue that I believe most people need to take a look at: the fact that getting about in the real world necessarily requires a different way of thinking than does intellectually processing anything.

The basis for this little problem is what I like to call the black & white syndrome. This affects most folk at one time or another: 'I'm a realist', 'I'm an idealist', 'I'm a solipsist' and so on. This neat order of things is dangerous, for the world falls into two categories: things that agree with your ethos and those that don't. Besides the apparent danger, this method is the quickest way to end up alone and bitterly lonely: we all follow unique paths of experience to get where we are now, and so I would claim that no single person will fit your particular boiling down of the world. That aside, the black and white syndrome will also inevitably lead to self deception: humans are just not good enough at processing to be able to boil them down to a neat description. And when we try, it too often runs on the all or nothing mentality: we either think in all that we are (good qualities) or all that we aren't (our faults).

Before continuing, I have to admit that this little blog is still trying to figure out what it wants to be (you know, like cognitive psychology). While I would like to think that my thoughts are philosophical, reality dictates that they steal also from sociology, psychology, and of course a little bit of pop culture (don't damn me, you all do it too: do you rely, or have every relied on a movie to describe an idea? Then you run on a little pop culture, deal with it yuppie). These ideas are generally rough draft in nature, and as such are foggy outlines leading towards what I actually want to say. The bonus of this is that I hope that anyone who cares to read it will at least take away a new line of thought to think: perhaps it will clear up some confusion in your life, perhaps you will mightily disagree (in which case I would love to hear about it), perhaps you will just think I've taken too much acid in my day and that my time would be better spent arguing with the nearest deer crossing sign, whatever; the great point is to inspire directed thought, starting with my brain droppings and hopefully ending with you the reader & I having a few moments in cyber space where we are both entertained (at least, I would prefer the profundity of our interaction to take a level slightly deeper than 'Rainy days are wet', but I'll take what I can get).

So back to the black and white problem. We have to boil the world down to interact in it - without categories, some way to limit the information we receive and process, we would all probably be sitting in the corner gently rocking ourselves out of fear. But boiling it down too much will close off some very important aspects of reality (think of the PhD 'stare': these people see the world in a way you and I could not hope to, and wouldn't want to; their social skills are actually slightly worse than a dead carp in an empty bathtub). So what is the answer? Is this a problem like the velocity/position problem of the electron; i.e. do we have to give up some degree of joy in order to become more efficient at life and vice versa?

I would have to say no, for I don't see the necessary connection between the color of the world (the joy, the more emotive faculties) and the analytic qualities (you know, the stuff that tells me if I make a pass at that girl I will probably get beat up, due in no small part to the Kodiak bear that she appears to be dating). There is nothing wrong with boiling things down to their essence (this is stolen form a nice little movie called Rodger Dodger, if you haven't seen it, stop reading now, we're done as blog buddies), the troubles begin when we believe what we have boiled it down to. This is a lot like judging a building by its skeleton, or a work of art only by its abstract form. We just cannot get the whole world in that kind of grasp, barring some serious evolution we just don't have the capacity (and if there are those that do, most likely they are too overwhelmed to say it: you can boil the world down to a pretty terrible place given the right info to run with).

To avoid the analytics altogether though will lead you to another problem; one will be left with an inability to the trees for the forest. This type will believe that each moment is precious (rightly so) but will be unable to see that moment's place in the grander scheme of things. These are the overly emotional folk, the ones who will call you lecher when you come home 10 minutes late to dinner: without a larger scheme, we can only expect the worst when things go wrong.

I guess again the moral of the story is moderation. The answer is to begin to see that we need both in the right proportion to stay, healthy, savvy, and friendly. We need to critically evaluate every situation that we get into, to see if there is some underlying moral to be taken away, or how this little bit of informational experience either confirms or denies what we have previously thought: if the evidence is strong enough we have to change what we think. On the flip side is the immediate reaction, the emotional response. To use a poorly fitting analogy, it is the aesthetics of life: it is what makes the painting beautiful to look at, the leaf soothing as it falls (you know, it doesn't represent anything, about death or the life cycle or anything like that, just leaves are cool to watch fall), the crazy feeling when you fall for someone, regardless of how hard and so on. I would really like to have better go at this idea, and I will soon, but in the meanwhile, if you have spare moment, see how this affects your life, and if perhaps a restructuring (or even slight modification) of priorities might make today a little more both rewarding and appealing.

Sadly, I must bid you all adieu for today, for if someone does die in the pool today, I'd better be there; that's why I'm paid as a contingency plan. And as winter approaches, stay in touch: chances are if you are reading this you know me, so say hello, chances are I miss you too and am just too caught up in life to take my head out of the sand to say hi. I'll try, but if boredom overcomes you, ya know...