The Difficulties of Being Nonjudgmental and Open-minded in a Judgmental and Opinionated World

Do not judge a book by its cover and don`t be so judgmental, we are often told. It is wrong to have preconceived notions about something or someone and we should keep an open mind about everything and everybody. Easier said than done.

First of all, as we are growing up, parents are pushing us to have an opinion. Which one do you like and what do you think about this or that. I think every parent would like their children to be able to be a person with their own characteristics, not a zombie that simply follows orders (though as a parent myself, sometimes I would not mind the zombie version of a child!).

If the children have not made up their own minds, they would face more serious challenges during the formative school years. Teachers may tell you how to do things but again a good teacher would want you to become independent, have an opinion and start thinking in a critical manner.

I believe this is a struggle that certain socialist and dictatorial countries face. They have taught their kids to follow orders and to do as they are told. For many, language learning for example consists in memorizing grammar concepts and vocabulary. But what about creativity and imagination? Those are two aspects that many have undervalued and its influence is ample and broad. Without a certain amount of creativity most, if not all, activities would not be able to reach its maximum potential, and that includes science and technology!

The result of critical thinking is that people will learn to think critically. They will be able to think independently, see a problem from many angles and see through lies and manipulation. They will also be more outspoken, telling others what they believe to be a wrong approach or idea; in other words, they can make up their own minds and have an opinion.

Now opinions are great. They give us our individuality and as we know, in a free country like ours, everyone has a right to their own opinion, no matter how wrong we may deem them to be. All our own personal experiences form into clusters of schemata and become our lenses through which we see and interpret the world.

Here is where the problem lies. When we have reached midlife, we walk around with myriads of preconceived notions and judgments. We may have an opinion on a variety of objects, some of them more informed than others and in some we may be more confident than in others.

And suddenly they tell us we should not be so judgmental! After years of encouragement of having a mind of our own! This is a very difficult thing to do. We cannot just erase years of conditioning and personal experience.

A possible solution could be thus: Have an open attitude. I have previously blogged about the importance of humility. We need it here. There is no way we can ever exactly know what others are feeling or going through. All we have are only approximations. We know what it feels like to go through a difficult break-up from what may have happened to us in the past. But we will never know exactly how this person, a different individual may feel about his loved one, a different person with different sets of relationship variables.

As a result, I try my best to be as humble as possible. There are so many experiences I have never had and some I will never know about. I get glimpses of a similar experience, but I can never know for sure. When people deal with heartache, I can only know what it has felt for myself to be in a similar situation, that`s all. However, when women go through pregnancy and give birth, I cannot possibly know as a man what it feels like and am left with conjectures only. The problem is we do not really know, in fact, we will not fully understand or ever get the complete picture of many types of experiences in our lifetime. So all we are left with are our own little biased opinions that we need to shed from time to time to become open-minded.

Faith, Imagination and why all Religions are equally right – and wrong

In our logical dualistic minds, we constantly separate fact from fiction, truth from lies and right from wrong and are bound to exclude one from the other. In other words, A is A and cannot be not-A at the same time. You cannot have, from a logical point of view, two contradictory statements that are equally right.

This belief, which is the backbone of science and technology, may stumble upon some difficulties in other, rather shady areas. One such would be the field of ethics. Sometimes it is not so easy to know which path to take and both actions could be the “right” thing to do. In those cases, we use our utilitarian guidelines, namely to find the choice that is the best option for the largest group of people.

In other areas, such as our personal lives, we tend to make decisions based on either what “feels” right or we bring out our list of pros and cons. But what about religious issues? Are the answers clear-cut? Can we say that one religion is more correct than others? Does logic apply to those realms as well? Is there an afterlife – or is there none? Do we accept yes-and-no and yes, but ... answers?

The problem is that our mind seems incapable or unwilling of accepting and embracing two contradictory statements. Either you are lying or you are telling the truth, now which one is it?

But then again “truth” can be a relative and subjective matter. What is true to me, to my experience of the world, may directly oppose your version. If I am depressed and you are happy our views of the same event are diametrically opposed. And when it comes to feelings, can we not feel both sad and happy at the same time? We often cry at both situations, so sometimes it is hard to distinguish one from the other.

There is a bizarre conclusion I would like to propose, one that may exasperate many logically and scientifically trained and inclined minds: What if all religions are equally right and wrong?

Imagine the following scenario. Romans used to worship Roman gods. For them, those gods, Jupiter and Apollo were “real”; they existed. We might say they exist in the same way fictitious entities like “Harry Potter” or “James Bond” exist. Do they really exist? No. Well, yes. Kinda. They exist in people`s minds but not physically, right?

What if there is another plane of existence? Somewhere where time and space have not begun yet, in a world of twilight zone meets pre-big bang. What if in this world what you believe is not only true for you personally, but becomes actually true through the simple act of faith and imagination. What if God both exists and not exists simply based on what we think, regardless of actual physical reality? So atheists will find no God, while theists would claim that they were also right after all. To each his or her own.

This must have been the confusion that the protagonist in “Solaris” faced. At this space station one`s imagination became real. As a result, he met the physical embodiment of his now dead wife. A hallucination? Perhaps, but she (it?) was there and felt “real” to the touch. Seeing was believing, no? If what we can see is not real and what we cannot see is not real either, what else is there?

My proposition is that the Romans were right in their unwavering belief, so is a Christian, a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Hindu etc. The world is perhaps less objective than we think. Faith can move more than mountains. Imagination is more important than knowledge. We are the creators, each one of us, not only of our own lives, but perhaps of the cosmos itself.

On Being a Father: Two Years Later

Although the first year of fatherhood was very interesting and rewarding, the second year has been much more beautiful. The difference is that nowadays my son is not only acknowledging my presence but is actively looking for me and enjoys being around me. We have already our own unique and bonding activities, such as “shaving” and “doing the laundry,” which happen, at his own insistence, at the exclusion of his mother.

I am told that sons begin to identify more with their father at this point and turn him into their personal hero. I remember talking to some of the kids I was teaching and they often mention that they look up to their father. This paternal admiration fills me with a cocktail of emotions, ranging from pride, love, satisfaction, and dread.

Yes, dread because there is often, if not always, in the back of my mind the fear of not delivering, of not living up to the standards of my son. And I know that once the teenage period kicks in, I will have to be at my best and strongest to deal with some of those burning accusations of his acute and imaginative mind!

At the same time, it fills me with anger to see how so many fathers out there let down their own children. Whether it is on purpose or as an unwanted consequence, they hurt their kids and leave long-lasting deep scars in the psyche of these fragile beings. Fatherhood, more than anything, comes with great responsibility and one needs to be aware of it, whether one likes it or not.

I am also aware personally that the fate and plight of children affects me much more now than in the past. I have to admit that certain commercials involving desolate children or movies depicting a father-son relationship affect me more than ever. It is my sentimental spot, but it is mostly because having a child myself a new gate has opened, suddenly and automatically, a new way of seeing and understanding the world.

Nothing to me is more rewarding at the end of a day of work than arriving at my apartment, opening the door and hear my son screaming “papa” and running towards the door to greet me. I see his glowing face and for a moment all tired feelings are lifted from me and all my efforts for his well-being are worth that single moment in time.

The Burden of Empirical Science in the Modern World

Science may be today what religion used to be in the Middle Ages. Back then, religion was a constant guide of life where one followed closely and literally hung on each and every word of the clergy. Any question about existence, God or on how to live life was addressed to those who were supposedly “in the know.”

Nowadays, it is the last word of a group of scientists who have usurped that power. When it comes to questions of health, life, even sanity we turn to science. Science decides what is truth, what is a falsehood, what is reality and what is a phantom, what is sanity and what is insanity. A grave case of mental illness used to be considered a possession of the devil while today it is a malfunction of the brain to be treated with pills and medication.

Science has the upper hand today because it produces results. Science has helped not only to interpret nature, but also to control and manipulate it. It has given us technology which enables us to do feats that the medieval minds could not even dream of. Medicine has managed to cure and eradicate various deadly diseases. When it comes to serious illness most people in the modern day of age would prefer medical procedures over prayer. Of course, I do not doubt the powers of prayer, but medicine, despite its failings and shortcomings would be a much surer bet; ideally both will be practiced because one should not underestimate the power of faith and belief, as psychologists often tell us.

Yet despite it all, science has struggled over the centuries. Some philosophers have questioned its validity. Although reason and logic have prevailed, there is one undeniable and accepted fact about science: its focus on empiricism. Why do or should we trust our senses so much? Scholasticism was based on the concept that one`s senses deceive and are hence unreliable and that one should use logic only to achieve certainty. They would disagree with our common-sense notion of “seeing is believing” and change it to “seeing is deceiving.”

And others would say that we will never know for sure that the objects out there actually exist. Descartes believed that everything can be doubted with the exception of one`s own self. I think, therefore I am. I can doubt and for me to be able to doubt there needs to be a distinct “I” to doubt things. Therefore I must exist. But does this table in front of me or the computer I am working on really exist? Can it not be simply a figment of my imagination, an elaborate well-devised hoax designed to deceive me?

These ideas are not so much “bogus” with the advent of quantum physics. If all is just made up of atoms that are moving fast and that “hard” and “soft” are just sense impressions we receive that have no basis in reality, then how can we be absolutely certain that it is really real? We perceive certain waves as color and sound but do these two exist independently, on their own? If you are colorblind does not the world for you exist of a combination and confusion between green and red? Are you wrong and is the rest right? Or could it be the other way around? Surely it would be unscientific to claim that truth is what the majority believes it to be, right?

It may lead us to the sceptics who claim that nothing can ever be known with certainty. Even cause and effect may just happen to be coincidence and not a reliable law. Our brain may be wired to see events in a certain way while it may not be able to see many other events. Ghosts may be perceived by some and not by others. Our sight may not be sensitive enough for such perceptions yet they may still exist. A blind person could be able to “see” more than we do. A medieval monk may have been right and it is us who are on the wrong track now.

The problem is that science with empirical evidence cannot fully explain truths. It can show and demonstrate what is true under certain circumstances in a certain environment. Science has been able to reproduce results; it can predict what will happen in a given situation, yet, for better or worse, it lacks the absolutes of religion and is focused on the particulars.

From there we derive theories but theories are not necessarily true. Evolution theory for the time being is one among many until perhaps we may find another, a better explanation. We definitely have more knowledge but it seems that it is a gamble. We can say that the empirical world of facts is the real deal and dismiss all religion and spirituality as cheap diversion or mere speculation and wishful thinking. Or we may have been fooled all this time and it is the other way around; then we have been blinded by a world of appearances and make believe and are living in Plato`s dimly-lit Cave.

You are what you Shop: How Clothes and Books reflect Personal Attitudes

In a materialistic consumer world your shopping defines who you are. The style or brand names you choose to wear, your clothes, shoes and accessories give substantial clues about what kind of person you are, what attitudes you cherish etc.

A business-person could be spotted from miles away, while goths have their own way of setting themselves equally apart from the rest of society; all this time, well-groomed artists and musicians are hard to find since that would, more often than not, contradict the image we associate with them.

Each of us is instantly communicating with others simply and non-verbally with our appearance. Of course, some of us -me- are not that aware of what kind of messages we give off since we have mostly undervalued and under-appreciated the force and pull of fashion. But experience has taught us -me again - that you cannot go to a job interview with a Labatt (beer label) shirt and expect to get lucky.

Although I am not a fond member of the consumer society, I can see how it can be of importance for certain groups of people. Many thrive on their style; it`s “do or die” for them. They need to make a good impression and would like to get your attention on the get-go. For them there is a gaping world of difference between “brand” and “no brand”. It becomes an existential matter of “to be” or “not to be”.

And your shopping habits do reflect who you are. For me, it is not so much about clothes, but books. When I see a cherished book or philosopher in the hands of a commuter I immediately label the person and feel a strange affinity toward them even though I have never met them before. They are then either beatniks, pessimists, neurotics, romantics, existentialists in my mind based solely on the impression of their books. I do not necessarily judge the book by its cover, but the person by their books.