How often do you tune into your own thoughts? I don’t mean what you think about so much as how often you are aware of why you think the way you do about something in particular, or anything in general, for that matter.
This thought occurred to me today when considering viewpoints. Regardless of what subject is rolling around upstairs, some of our viewpoints seem to be almost holy to us… so much so, that there’s no telling what we might do if someone dared to mock us for our stance on a subject, belief, fairy tale, or whatever; why do we have that viewpoint, and hold it in such high regard?
If you’re into sports, say American pro football, and you are just more than one hundred percent sure that the player you like is the absolute best player in the whole league, well dammit, no one is gonna tell you different and get away with it. Especially if you’re a guy, but I’m sure there are now women like this too.
And then, afterwards, do you do a kind of review on the viewpoint, to make sure that you still think it’s valid, and that you’ll continue to support it one hundred percent? Or are you unaware of “bugs” that need fixing, or maybe a variable that needs tuning? Be honest.
You might come up with a blank, when you had been under the impression that you had some of those viewpoints up there, somewhere, only to realize that that old box over in the corner of the attic that you were sure they were in, is actually just an empty box.
But considering there is at least one viewpoint that would be so holy, you’d defend it to the death, do you think you might find it interesting to check up and see if you’re still that into it every now and then? I’m thinking that, for most of us, we don’t take time to do a check-up on our viewpoints all that much.
When was the last time you marched one of those viewpoints out to impact a discussion or debate, and had a failure? Someone counters with facts that show your viewpoint has some updates you haven’t installed, and because of that, the veracity of your entire viewpoint is in danger of epic failure right before your eyes.
How do you react; by doubling down in the discussion/debate and insisting you’re still correct, even though you sense defeat, and even though you’d run the risk of being humiliated - publicly possibly? Oh yeah, we all do that sometimes, don’t we? Only to regret it, also just as we suspect.
I personally think that if we consider ourselves to be logical, intelligent, open-minded and inquisitive beings, then these kinds of checkups on our viewpoints do need to be updated often, if we’re serious about employing them to seek out, and then deploy truth as a result. To do otherwise would require a willingness to ignore truth at all costs.
And what kind of person would do that, other than a politician, a used-car salesman or a mob hit-man?
Or Lemmings?
Thanks for reading!
Sources for images used in this post:
(Public Domain photos are from Wikimedia Commons)
