A Cycle of Truth

The first time my kids walked into California’s Lego Store at Downtown Disney, their feet stuck to the floor. Their eyes panned from wall to ceiling the bins of Legos. Slowly they turned to see tables filled with Legos. The floor allowed their feet to move as they began to explore the shelves stuffed with Lego kits to be purchased and blithely taken home to be constructed. 

Our relationship with the amount of information we have access to is similar. How to process it all? What is a conspiracy theory and what is truth? How to tell the difference. What to do if it Feels true? 

How did we even get to this reality of multiple truths?

Before The Plague our relationship with truth was based on nature. What we could see, taste and touch. Anything outside of that was ethereal. The Gods or Spirits were in control of it.  As plagues and natural disasters happened throughout history, our relationship with Nature changed. 

We asked questions. 

We developed answers.

Those answers worked until the next natural disaster or plague. 

Then…

We asked more questions.

We revised old answers.

We created new answers to new questions.

Our cycle of thought  continued until The Great Plague. It birthed the Renaissance, which  changed everything. By 1715-1789 the way we thought about the natural world bloomed into the Age of Enlightenment. All those questions and answers, the seeds of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Ptolmey fed Galileo, Newton, Freud, Jung, and the list goes on. 

Truth was no longer absolute. Truth became relevant to the facts presented. 

What was once a Brontosaurus is now an Apatosaurus body with a possible Camarasaurus head.  

Pluto was a planet. Then it wasn’t. Then it was.Tomorrow…?

The Enlightenment wove together centuries of philosophy, religion, science and art, birthed from the Renaissance, into a streamlined conclusion. It is a rubric we all still work from to this day. 

Our current Scientific Method.

Critical Thinking

Skepticism

Rationalizing 

Natural History

Liberalism

The Constitution

Separation of Church and State

I could go on, but it is a deep rabbit hole and that’s what you have the internet for.

With all of the political and social unrest of late, I keep hearing the terms “Critical Thinking” and “Bias” thrown around. It only adds to the information confusion. Why?

Because Truth is relative to the experience of the listener, based on the rules the Age of Enlightenment gave us. Truth is filtered through the lense of our own experiences, thoughts, philosophies, pain, pleasures and beliefs. These terms thrown around are meaningless words if no one takes the time to define them. 

For me, they sound like a long list of criticisms in a never ending argument:

“Check your bias.”

“Think critically.”

“Have common sense.”

“Ya Snowflake!”

“Ok Boomer!”

And scene.

It is right here that I, and most people, STOP. 

They walk away from the conversation.

Why? 

No one is listening.

The first rule of the Age of Enlightenment is forgotten: to be ENLIGHTENED. To be curious. To learn. Take a step back and weigh all the possibilities. The consequences of harm or benefit. During the 1700s, people would gather in Coffee Houses simply to talk about opposing views. Do openly discuss and disagree.

However, they did not argue. They debated. The difference?

An argument is when two people are talking to prove their own point and not listening to the other. They don’t agree and oftentimes walk away angry. 

A debate is when two people are exchanging ideas, listening and considering the other person’s point of view. They never have to agree, however they do walk away on friendly terms. 

In a debate, we learn. We expand our knowledge, empathy, and the ability to form relevant truth.

Add in the plethora of information in media, internet, podcasts, books, journalism, etc? How does anyone make any sense of it?

Here is where I start:

First I define terms:

What does Bias mean?

Bias a person’s view of the world. It is our nature for the world to bend to our senses. Our Ego desires everything to match up with how we think. 

“If everyone would just do what I tell them, life would be much better.”

The way we process information is the same way. Our Ego has an idea. It begins to look for evidence to support this idea. The more it looks for evidence, the more it sees, the more the Ego feels safer and stronger in it’s point of view. This process is called Confirmation Bias.

Confirmation Bias is the beginning of my Critical Thinking process. When a piece of information comes my way, I stop and consider. 

Do I immediately FEEL like it’s right? (red flag) 

Do I immediately agree with it? (yellow flag) 

Does it make me curious? (green flag)

How I respond determines how I investigate. If I respond in a Red or Yellow flag way, I know that my Confirmation Bias has kicked in. I need to take a step back and look at some facts. Sometimes that means looking into opposing viewpoints. However, I keep an eye out for emotional language and absolutes in their perspective. If I hear either one, I skip to the next piece of information. I try to set my Confirmation Bias, Emotions and Beliefs aside while I am information gathering.

What does Critical Thinking mean?

Once I have identified my personal Bias, I can apply Critical Thinking. My recipe for processing the information I gathered is this: 

Occam’s Razor: basically states, “the simplest solution is most likely the right one.”

Balanced with Newton’s Third Law: “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction”

With a dash of Murphy’s Law “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.”

My Working Conclusion is the end result. I call it a Working Conclusion because it isn’t final. My conclusion can change based on new information. If I call it an absolute Conclusion I am giving into my Confirmation Bias and no longer thinking critically. I want to stay as far away from the  slippery slope to “Snowflake/ Ok Boomer” land, which leads absolutely nothing productive.

It is great to have ideas and think them all the way through to a working conclusion, but what then? How do I turn the idea into something productive? This is honestly the most important part for me. Whatever the end result of my Critical Thinking journey, it should help increase my empathy for others while learning to extend grace to myself. From that point I can create a plan of action.

It is a swamp of overwhelming information out there. The trickiest part is figuring out how to get through it all with sanity, while remembering to Love my neighbor as Myself.

That is what Tenacious Optimism looks like.

Quarantine Sunshine Part 1

This is a really rough season on all of us. I felt like we were stuck in the Muppets Treasure Island scene, where the ship is stuck in the doldrums. Just like the seafaring Sailors of old dealt with it all the time. 

The wind would stop. 

The ship would stall, and the only thing the sailors could see for miles around was the ocean horizon. 

The human brain is engineered for connection and learning. To be trapped in the same environment for days or even weeks to months on end traps our biology in a hell of our own making. These poor sailors would cope by telling tales, and sometimes by seeing mythological creatures like Mermaids that would call them into the sea.

Sailors, feeling trapped and helpless, looking for connection, novelty and adventure would jump into the sea deceived by their own delusions. They believed their feelings over the facts of the situation they were in. 

Muppets Treasure Island, of course, has a brighter solution. The instruments come out and they all sing a song. The fantastic musical number is complete with a conga line! 

During the Homeschool years, often the four of us would be stuck at home. Either I was having a fibromyalgia flare, stuck in the Mom taxi driving kids to their usual round of commitments, or a kid or two was ill with the current trending virus. Sometimes, the weather would be a factor.

All of us cooped up.

Feeling trapped. 

As if we couldn’t go anywhere. 

Arguments would start. Tempers would shorten. Problems would magnify.

My antidote? 

Play.

We would start with a list of possibilities. Things I knew we were able to do. They could be preposterous. However, if we really wanted to do them it was possible.

This list of fantastical things then became a brainstorm of How To accomplish those things: 

Blanket Fort

Ice cream for Lunch.

Picnic on the floor

Movie 

Walk outside

Wear a crown.

Call a friend

Raid the pantry and look up recipes for the ingredients you have.

We mixed the Fun with a list of To-Dos. Music was our measurement of time. We would race to finish the Job, THEN the game began.

Now the kids are adults, I practice the same thing for myself. Sometimes it is just a song or a single task with a fun To Do at the end. It is a Practically Perfect in Every Way Self Care Habit. 

 

For daily practice, to keep my sour attitude in check, I keep track of what I am grateful for. I either keep a journal, a jar with a stack of paper. Anytime something good happens, no matter how small, I write it down and put it in the jar. When I am feeling disconnected and melancholy, I look through the journal or reflect on what is in the jar. 

Sometimes I need a little bit more. The Isolation feels overwhelming and no matter what I “do” to lift my own mood, I plummet like a lead balloon.

I begin to the Big Practices out to deal with myself.

First, I remind myself:

Feelings aren’t facts.

Just because I feel

Lonely

Isolated

Disconnected

Abandoned

Trapped

Held hostage

On the edge of economic collapse

Facing financial ruin, etc.

It doesn’t mean I am. I take a step back from what I am feeling and make a list of the facts of the situation I am in.

Fact:  

A highly contagious respiratory flu virus. 

So new, science is having a hard time collecting data about it. 

New discoveries are being made every day.

It is difficult to treat.

It is unpredictable.

It could kill my neighbor.

The medical system is asking that I help stop the spread,

Fact:

Staying home and protecting myself WHEN I go into public is a service to my neighbor and myself.

When I take a step out of my feelings and look at facts, I am able to put my feelings in perspective. This allows me to ask the right questions: 

What do I need? 

I need connection

How can I get what I need?

Make a phone call/facetime.

Write a letter.

Start a theme, photo, favorite song, movie, etc.  on social media to get people talking.

Check in with neighbors and add their items to my list when shopping. This simplifies community marketing visits. Check in with your neighbors. See who is vulnerable and offer to run errands for them.

For those of you who are well and wouldn’t put anyone at risk of exposure, look into volunteering in our community. 

These are small practices that ease daily tensions. Tune in tomorrow for my Big Practices that I use to anchor me in long, agonizing seasons like the one we are in.

Quarantine Sunshine Part 2

Our emotional health in the situation of Chronic Isolation, Social Isolation or Quarantine is important. Another HUGE challenge is how to anchor ourselves in this monotonous loop of time.

Have you ever wondered:

Have we as a Human Race always been this way?

Why do we even have a calendar or a clock?

For Centuries the Human Race measured time by an intrinsic rhythm. Different cultures, villages, people groups, even our pioneers created their own systems of tracking time as a community. At that time individuals of the community produced products at home then traded with others for mutual benefit. Communities agreed on systems based on the seasons and for an ability to relate with one another. It was all cooperative. 

The initial wave of The Black Death hit the world in 1361. The last outbreak of The Black Death in 1665–66 created a final shift in how we did things. As farms stood empty, famine was rampant. The economy was devastated because of the massive loss of life. People gathered together to create a solution. Villages formed into Cities and the services of the Local Tradesmen became obsolete as their product became mass produced. 

This created room for a revolution. An Industrial Revolution. 

Necessity was the Mother of Invention and birthed machinery. Which provided jobs. This, in turn, created a more affordable product. More products needed more workers, this created more jobs. Away the Revolution went!

Of course, it was destructive to the surviving status quo. Farmers revolted against factories. Tradesmen attacked laborers. Over time, the reason to get out of bed and work was no longer intrinsic.

The reason to get out of bed became extrinsic; people left home for a job. The entire cultural motivation shifted from inward to outward. When people finish their careers and retire from this Extrinsic Industrial Machine, they struggle with what we are facing now. 

Stuck at home. No “purpose.” No way to tell the days apart. No motivation to create a What’s Next.  So how to regain this Intrinsic Motivation?

Create our own rhythms.

 Housewives did it for Centuries. I remember how my Grandma talked about the Days of the week:

Tuesday was Garbage Day.

Wednesday was Laundry Day.

Thursday was Market Day.

Saturday was Yard Day.

Sunday was for Church.

Well into her 70s and after quite a few strokes,  according to my Uncle, she was never wrong about what day Tuesday was. It was Garbage Day. She didn’t know much other than that.

For me, when days blurred together, I create a schedule. When the kids were schooling, it was a chart. A timer was used for each subject, when the bell went off we moved on. Some days were more flexible than others. That simple chart and annoying bell created a rhythm for me to mark time in my day.

I have a self-employed Work Schedule now. I am struggling just like you to figure out what works. I schedule the projects like appointments, and yes, I am using a timer.  I do not allow interruptions, just as if I was in an office. My time is mine to do with as I decide is the most productive. Interruptions need to take a number and wait for their turn.

For the Household Chores schedule, I use it to mark the days of the week. Acting like I am working a full-time job in my home, I paced out the house chores. I broke them up into Everyday Morning and Evening. Once A Week, about 4 days, and Once a Month-which is a “swing day” 5. The nice thing about this efficient schedule is if it doesn’t happen this week? Not a problem. I’ll catch it next week. Cleaning doesn’t take me more than an hour to an hour and a half total at most in an entire day.  Remember, there is no right or wrong way to do a schedule. It’s important to figure out what works for you. Where your sweet, comfortable spot of sanity is. 

The great thing about this season of Quarantine is all of the things we get to put into practice now we are able to and take into the future when “life gets back to normal. The practice of  gratitude, community, having your own time, rhythm, and adventure? 

This is what Tenacious Optimism looks like.