Tuesday, April 17, 2012

458 NO! NO! NOT AGAIN!!! Part 47

Swinging ...
“I like knowing that your attachment to reading began with me, but I was referring to reading about resolving conflicts between adults …
“Well, Mom, one day while reading about sibling rivalry, it dawned on me that once adults are upset, many of us revert spontaneously to acting irrationally, like angry kids.  So, growing older doesn’t necessarily equate with growing wiser, because emotional maturity relies on self-examination, self control and conscious choice.  When adults engage in conflict, our eyes, ears, and minds can be so busy watching and listening to our opponents' hasty emotional reactions that we don’t see, hear, or remember our own.  *If we fail to recognize defensive thinking and listening patterns then we’re likely to miss the subtle ways that insecurity and negativity breed self absorbed attitudes, which blind us to those times when the ego blocks the brain from considering every plea to expand a narrow point view.  *Here is why my fascination, concerning absorbing knowledge into defensive patterns, deepens, as though I'm mining my mind for gold:  *The more I understand and transform my defensive traits, the better friend I become.
"Uh—I need an example, Annie."
Okay.  Look at it this way, Mom.  Let’s say that you and I jump into a painting, which we have no clue has become crookedly hung.  Each time we gaze out at the rest of the room—from our skewed point of view—we might agree that the floor is slanted when, in fact, the rest of the room may be better balanced than we are.  When misperception alters the little we can see from an unchanging position, and our opinions are supported by a solid wall, our egos cast blame onto others while shifting all possibility of mistaken perception away from ourselves.  In this way do our egos serve as master magicians, performing tricks inside our heads.  And here’s the ego’s best trick of all.  After placing its opinions and beliefs into a hat, the ego waves it’s magic wand and, ‘presto-chango’, pulls out personal thoughts, transformed into facts!  As as nothing can shake those 'facts' free of a mind, which needs to remain deaf and blind and thus, solidly blocked to logic, the master magician can fool every mind in the room to view those opinions and beliefs as facts.  And thus do gangs form, which gang up on knocking down the opinions of others, until— THE TRUTH emerges in the end, freeing one and all."  Being on a non-stop roll, nothing can stop my tongue from wagging, now ...
"Though many are born smart, it can take a lifetime before a group of smart people learns how vital it can be to place egos in time out in hopes of listening to other opinions openly, patiently and objectively. As long as the ego and it's hired guns (defense mechanisms) runs the show, we can't stop whitewashing our character traits while darkening the traits of others—picture vigilantees riding their trusty steeds across the badlands, whooping it up with shouts of:  'String'em up to the nearest tree!'  If wisdom whispers through the ages, so doth the dark side whip gangs into a frenzy in countless ways of declaring:  KILL THE MESSENGER!"
“Most people will never learn to listen to themselves in depth like that, Annie.”
“Ah yes, but I hadn’t quite finished my thought, Mom.  Here's what I was about to say:  *In lieu of objectivity, smart people fail to recognize how often we act too smart for our own good.  *The fact that Western culture reveres youth and pushes the elderly off to one side is one of our society’s most serious mistakes.  When inexperience replaces experience, in hopes that Midas can pay lower salaries, productivity suffers, all around.  (Mom is now shaking her head vigorously, YES!)  Life is divided into four seasons for a good reason.  Though youth may be born with smarts, those smarts are wasted when wisdom is ignored.”
 “And how!  So, tell me, Annie, how’d you get so analytical?”

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