September 9, 2015 – Have ever just stopped and picked up the most mundane object and looked closely at it? It’s always surprising what you see when you slow down and take a closer look at the world.
Everything is so different when you are willing to make an effort to change your perspective.
Humans are funny that way. We tend to choose a path, a line of thinking, and we stick to it, often stubbornly and unwaveringly. I suppose when we make an investment – emotionally, financially, intellectually – we feel the investment needs to be defended, often illogically and/or irrationally.
There are so many examples.
Religion, stock purchases, environmental issues, and so many more.
When logic, data, science refute the issue at hand, so many just dig in and bulldog on. Reason goes out the window.
I was in a truck heading up a logging road with several others yesterday. The driver stopped to speak with someone bucking up a large log “Hey, I didn’t know you were still alive!!”.
Laughter, followed by discussions on fishing. Sockeye in the Barkley are doing phenomenally, the Skeena is doing well….the Fraser sucks. “It’s that damned aquaculture” he belted out. “The fish in the Fraser are being cut down when they pass those damned farms.”
In the back seat I quietly sucked in my breath; two others in the truck have taken fish health classes with me at UBC, we’ve had this exchange in a much more intellectual manner in past years. They ask intelligent questions, we have logic based discussions.
My colleague sitting in front of me quietly said over his shoulder “Easy there Paige…”
The fellow outside the truck said “Is there a fish farmer in there somewhere?”
“Nope”
The topic was changed, goodbyes were exchanged, and on we drove.
The young woman in the middle, completely in the dark about what just happened, said…”I missed something, didn’t I?”
And a rational discussion followed. Pros and cons, history, positives and negatives.
If you can’t see the flaws in your own discussions and be willing to shift your position based on rational conversation, there is no critical thinking based conversation to be had.
It’s that myopic, uninformed world that needs to be challenged. Critical thinking skills and common sense are not so common anymore. People focus on one bit of information, even if it’s incorrect, and they cannot filter out the noise to see the real details, and they can’t put the details into proper perspective to see the bigger picture.
What’s that to do with the tip of a cedar branch?
Nothing, of course.
But it’s a pretty cool view of a fallen branch, don’t you think?
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