It is quite common these days to come across people with polarizing views arguing with each other over who is right and who is wrong - you only need to look at religions or politics to see examples.
I would suggest that this is mostly a waste of time and isn't going to lead to happiness.
They say a picture is worth 1000 words so my entire post can be summed up by the following picture:
Everyone looks at the world through the lens of their own perspective, shaped by their core beliefs. What you believe to be true may not actually be an absolute truth, it could just be a belief about something, causing you to look at something from a certain perspective without seeing the bigger picture. In the diagram, person A could be looking at the cake from the top and they would see a triangle, so to them, from their perspective, cake is a triangle! But person B could be looking at the cake from the side and they would see a rectangle, so from their perspective, cake is a rectangle! Both of them are absolutely correct AND both of them have not truly understood what a cake is.
If person A was closed-minded they would:
- get very angry with anyone who disagreed with their perspective that cake is a triangle
- get into a lot of arguments with people that think cake is a rectangle
- potentially live a life filled with conflict, anger and unhappiness
If person B was open-minded they would:
- find it interesting that there was another way to perceive cake and eventually realize that all the fundamental properties of cake may not yet be understood
- have lots of enlightening discussions about cake with people that think cake is a triangle
- potentially live a life filled with curiosity, discovery and empathy
[As an aside, technically speaking, the idea that "cake is delicious!" isn't an absolute truth either, it is just an opinion, but I wanted to have some fun writing this! It would be more accurate to state the absolute truth as: "the cake just is" or even "there is no cake, it is just an illusion made using Microsoft Paint 3D!".]
The old parable of the 3 blind men and the elephant, found in Buddhist, Hindu and Jain texts illustrates the same point perfectly. This time we are replacing the cake with an elephant. The first blind man touches the elephant's trunk and decides that the elephant is like a thick snake. The second blind man touches the elephant's leg and decides that the elephant is like a hard pillar. The third blind man touches the elephant's tail and decides that the elephant is like a rope. All three blind men spend their days bitterly arguing over who is correct without seeing the bigger truth: the elephant has all of these properties but is also so much more than their descriptions.
The Greek philosopher Plato also illustrates this idea in his Allegory of the Cave. This time the cake is replaced with shadows on a cave wall created by a fire, while people stare at the cave wall. People chained to the cave wall believe that their entire reality is the wall and give names and meaning to the shadows being formed, unaware that they are actually prisoners and that there is a greater reality outside the cave.
So the next time you find yourself having an angry argument with someone, ask yourself: do I think that a cake is a triangle? In other words, are you being blinded by your perspective? Can you see things from the other person's point of view? Is the argument productive or not? Is there a bigger perspective that you can adopt?
I wanted my first post in this community to emphasize the importance of maintaining an open mind as you journey through life because it can open up more opportunities that you may have previously been unaware of. Also my future articles in the self-improvement community have the potential to be polarizing, so this article sets the stage. Now, if you will excuse me, I am off to eat some cake! 🍰