Thinking

The human mind is magnificent, but it is still flawed.

Some people are thought of as being ‘Broadminded,” seeing the big picture. Others are thought of as being “Narrow minded,” seeing only a part of the picture (see Seeing). Because we can see the picture in various ways, people can have different impressions of the same picture.

For example, if there is a painting of a cow in a meadow, one person might say it is a picture of a cow, another might say it’s a picture of a meadow, another might say it is a picture of various colors, another might say it is a picture that is symbolic of man’s dominance over other animals. People always bring in their previous knowledge and experiences (or lack of) to interpret what they see. Each person’s interpretation of the painting is a reflection of what that person thinks is true.

What is difficult for people to deal with is that there are multiple truths, each cast in shades of right and wrong (see Good and Bad). Everyone wants a simple answer, the right answer. The problem is that the more complex something is, the more complex is the interpretation/answer. So sometimes there is neither a simple answer nor a right answer. Because many people get confused and frustrated with complex ideas and answers, they avoid them and seek simple, easy solutions instead. War has often been the solution to complex problems, but people should realize, by now, that war only makes more problems, so it should be avoided, especially with nuclear weapons around.

Sometimes, a huge multitude of problems can be solved with a simple solution, by seeing the root causes. You have to be able to see through all the fog caused by misinformation (religion, patriotism, corporate propaganda, corporate media, corporate capitalism) to see that corporate greed is the root cause of millions of problems today (see Greed, Neo-cons). Once the fog is removed, everything seems much clearer.

Sometimes, we can only try to understand a problem as completely as we can, keeping in mind that we can easily be wrong, and make a decision. Hopefully, in a democratic society, where propaganda is not in the driver’s seat, we will be able to collectively work through our problems. Just realize that most of the time; there isn’t a simple or complete solution. We just need to proceed using all the intelligence we can muster.