"I am leaving, I am leaving"--but the fighter still remains
We know something for a very long time. It's ingrained, reactive, not anything we have to think about. It's just there. Then something comes along and shakes the words from the textbook of our learning, scatters them and when we stoop to reassemble our precious lessons, the words have rearranged and now teach a different lesson. A contrary lesson. We remember the earlier, but words in our case are very powerful. They represent truth. We trust them. And now they say something different.
There's a term for it, I've found. "Cognitive dissonance" is when "the feeling of uncomfortable tension which comes from holding two conflicting thoughts in the mind at the same time." (from changingminds.org) I don't necessarily feel discomfort, but once in awhile, that earlier lesson asserts itself, reminds me that it was accepted as truth at one point in my existence, perhaps in the greater part of my physical existence, and I want to act/react accordingly. This new lesson -- this departure from the past -- cries out, "NO!" Then comes the dissonance.
Does that mean that no matter how much "better" we become, no matter how much we "evolve," there's still that chance that prior conditioning (thinking the ITA system of reading that totally screwed up my grandmother's lessons in teaching me to read...) may surface, and we must forever be on guard against it? Oh, my....is there any time when the earlier, more primitive lesson is more valid than the later, more progressive lesson?
Now I've totally confused myself. That makes this a very productive day indeed.
Till later...
There's a term for it, I've found. "Cognitive dissonance" is when "the feeling of uncomfortable tension which comes from holding two conflicting thoughts in the mind at the same time." (from changingminds.org) I don't necessarily feel discomfort, but once in awhile, that earlier lesson asserts itself, reminds me that it was accepted as truth at one point in my existence, perhaps in the greater part of my physical existence, and I want to act/react accordingly. This new lesson -- this departure from the past -- cries out, "NO!" Then comes the dissonance.
Does that mean that no matter how much "better" we become, no matter how much we "evolve," there's still that chance that prior conditioning (thinking the ITA system of reading that totally screwed up my grandmother's lessons in teaching me to read...) may surface, and we must forever be on guard against it? Oh, my....is there any time when the earlier, more primitive lesson is more valid than the later, more progressive lesson?
Now I've totally confused myself. That makes this a very productive day indeed.
Till later...
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