“Narrow-minded? Not me. I’m just correct all the time.” Uh, let’s work on this a bit more here in Part 2.
Thought-Version Updates
Mulling over the road blocks to productive thinking led me to run an analysis of my own firewalls and filters. Are they good ones for fostering intellectual and spiritual growth? This question needs to be ongoing for me. So, I’ve decided to try putting my default mode on auto-update.
How do I do this? One means is to read stuff that falls outside of my current comfort zone. It takes sticking my head outside of my familiar echo chamber. It takes my being willing to be challenged rather than endlessly lapping up opinions I already agree with.
I also must decide to listen as carefully as I can to people who hold positions different from my own. I must try to remember to craft clarifying questions. I must attempt to quell the urge to listen only to frame my next retort or rebuttal.
Then, I must welcome the challenge to re-think the foundations of the conclusions that I reached in the past and the positions I now hold.
I need to enjoy the freedom to make adjustments where they are warranted.
Easy? Not so much. It takes effort. We might need to find a local chapter of Thinkers Anonymous. That would look like surrounding ourselves with at least a few people who are on intellectual and spiritual pilgrimage like we say we are, people with whom we can be honest about where we got our beliefs and about the questions that remain.
Truth is not afraid of close examination.
In the end, some core beliefs will become better established. Others may be altered, or even shaken. Surely the rewards for these efforts will be positive for the persons you and I are continually becoming.
When it comes to my ’ink Again conversations your current firewalls and filters, your love of your usual echo chambers, may color your receptivity and responses. My confidence is that you will not earn any of those negative labels mentioned in Part 1.
I often see people reaching for reading glasses when print media shows up. It wouldn’t hurt to keep a good pair of un-tinted magnifiers on hand for examining ’ink Again. ~dkb~-
'ink Again 