--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, TurquoiseB [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
This is just a café rap inspired by a previous post
to Richard Hughes earlier today, about whether demos
of people flying would radically change people's minds
about the TMO. If you didn't like the original rap,
you aren't going to like this one, so hit NEXT now. :-)
So what is the Big Bad Boogey Man, the thing that most
people on this planet are most afraid of?
Some are going to say death, but I'm going to disagree.
That's kind of a given, and most people have found ways
to either never think about the prospect or to have some
comforting belief about what death involves.
So, are most people most afraid of terrorism? Of losing
their jobs or a way to make a living and ending up poor
and homeless? Of bad things happening to them or their
loved ones? If you watch the news, it's clear that all
of these are BIG fears in the minds of a lot of people
on this planet. But I don't think any of them is the
biggest fear, the Big Bad Boogey Man himself.
I think that the BBBM -- the thing that most people are
most afraid of -- is cognitive dissonance. Most people
are most afraid of changing their minds.
I think that the thing they fear the most is that the
belief systems that they have constructed or adopted to
explain the world around them and how it works are
wrong or incomplete, and that if they ever admit this,
they'll be in a position of Having No Clue, having to
start over and come up with a *new* belief system to
explain the world around them.
My theory -- and it's ONLY a theory, a half-baked opinion --
explains SO MUCH of what we see in the world around us,
and on this forum. Think about the sometimes over-the-top
ways that people react to the idea that maybe Maharishi
wasn't right about everything, or that America is not
exactly the beacon of wealth, happiness, liberty, justice,
and freedom for all it pretends to be. Some people go
CRAZY when these beliefs are challenged.
And WHY? Well, I think it's because they perceive -- and
correctly -- that if the things that these heretics are
saying about the things that they believe are true, then
their beliefs themselves are not true, or not complete.
And if that were so, what then?
The people who react with anger or TBness IMO perceive a
quagmire of *cognitive dissonance* lurking behind the
heretics and what they are saying. And they're right.
But WHY do they fear this?
One would think that a seeker of truth would be *pleased*
to discover that his previous beliefs about a subject
were incorrect or only partially correct. That would mean
that the seeker HAD LEARNED SOMETHING NEW. He or
she would have *grown*, expanded his or her knowledge of
the world around them. They wouldn't have lost anything
at all, except the illusory certainty that they knew
everything about the world around them already.
As a Buddhist, what I see in the overreactions some have
to their core beliefs being challenged is attachment. If
they were unattached to their beliefs, what would there be
to fear in having to change them, based on new information?
And yet people DO fear changing their beliefs. They fight
WARS to keep from changing their beliefs, and to impose
those beliefs on others.
I think these people are fearful for no reason, and that
cognitive dissonance is a Good Thing. I think it's the
thing that indicates progress -- both intellectual progress
and spiritual progress. If you still believe exactly the
same things today that you did last year, IMO you have made
no progress and learned nothing new during that year.
The fearful would say, But...but...but my beliefs haven't
changed because they're RIGHT. That could be. Or it could
be that their fear that their beliefs AREN'T right or
complete has made them attack or close themselves off to
new knowledge that might reveal that their previous beliefs
weren't right ENOUGH. They weren't quite there yet.
So, my theory is that the Biggest Baddest Boogey Man for
most people is the fear of cognitive dissonance -- the
realization that something you believed could not possibly
happen IS happening, right in front of you. Or conversely,
that the things you believed with absolute certainty will
happen aren't happening. When they are confronted with the
potential for cognitive dissonance, they react with the
fight or flight response -- they lash out or close down,
to try to make that potential GO AWAY.
IMO, what they are lashing out at and closing themselves
off to is the universe trying to teach them something new.
Very insightful post, Thanks...
