The (Rare) Art of Open-Minded Skepticism
The (Rare) Art of Open-Minded Skepticism
Tips for Personal Growth while Truthing/Sleuthing
Do you want to persevere beyond the ego’s iron grip on “knowledge”? Would you like to evolve yourself for your own sake and also to make it more pleasant for other people to be around you? I’m probably either preaching to the choir or else sending people scurrying far asunder. So be it; I feel like writing about this today.
When you encounter a new bit of information that’s controversial (to you), here’s what you can do:
Notice if your mind has an immediate intellectual reaction: a yay or nay, black-and-white thinking reaction. Toss this rapid-fire conclusion in the nearest trash receptacle.
Notice if you experience an immediate emotional reaction. Don’t personally claim it, but rather, put some distance between you and it. Become an observer of this phenomenon: “oh wow, isn’t it interesting how this energy of anger (or fear or uneasiness or whatever) is showing up.” Notice where in the physical body this e-motion seems to be stirring up energy.
That’s a good start: nipping in the bud the usual knee-jerk reactions. You need a little time inserted so you can slow it down and respond rather than react. There’s more detail about these two tips below after this fun comic strip break.
More about #1: Intellectual Reaction
These egos we have can be a real nuisance. We think we already know shit, but it’s based on the past, and usually also based on misunderstandings or at least limited vantage points. We don’t like to let in new information because it’s unsettling. “Dammit, I thought I had that figured out already! Oh man, do we really have to keep opening all these cans-o-worms?
Sometimes we do already know things, of course. But as a practice, minimizing your assumptions and questioning everything is the key to both personally evolving and finding deeper truth.
I find it helpful to pose a series of questions within my own mind. You might want to check out The Work of Byron Katie, because she’s got this process distilled into a useful rundown. “Is it true?” “How do I know it’s true?” “Is it really true?” BUT remember, you’re not applying the questions to the new bit of information that has triggered you. You’re applying the questions to the triggered response—that is, what you think you already know that wants to lash out at the new bit of information.
“It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.”
―Mark Twain
If you come up with “everyone knows that ______”, well THAT, my friend, is a BIG OL’ RED FLAG and excellent fodder to work with. Why? Because, as it turns out, a LOT of what we assume to be rock-hard truth—things we have been taught in school (or have been drip-fed subconsciously to us through the media and the ethers of societal groupthink)—is actually a big fat bundle of lies.
An idea or “fact” that is widely accepted is assumed to be THE truth by unquestioning persons. But I say that if everyone “knows” or agrees on something, it’s GROUPTHINK and it’s definitely suspect. The propaganda machine is incredibly systemic, insidious, and operates long-term. Of course this is my opinion but it’s an assertion based on a shit-ton of research, deep thought, and careful observation of life on Planet Earth. I heartily invite you to do your own due diligence and arrive at your own conclusions.
If right now you’re thinking that I’m paranoid/crazy/etc, well good on you, because you have some insta-fodder to try out these reaction-wrangling tips!
(If you’re still in that innocent phase where you’re wondering “now why would [they] want to propagandize/lie to us?” In this case [they] means the establishment cabal consisting of various government, media, educational, nonprofit, and corporate entities and more. Well, if that’s where you’re at, then this post or this blog in general may not even make sense to you. To bring you up to speed would take a much higher word count than we’re gonna stick to in this post. I’ll try to address that humongous topic in future posts, so if you’re genuinely interested, please go ahead and subscribe.)
Years ago, on my grand woo-woo midlife crisis journey, I was exposed to a lot of new ideas that initially challenged my engineering-biased left brain. For instance, the notion that minerals have consciousness. Say what?!?? That was my initial reaction. Because “everyone knows that” minerals are inorganic, and only the animal kingdom (and just maybe a tiny bit of the plant kingdom) has consciousness. At the time, it seemed like a bizarre claim about minerals.
I was able to get beyond my mind’s stall-out by: 1) observing this reaction but not giving it energy (not scoffing at the source of information or needing to voice my opinion in opposition); and 2) realizing eventually that my definition of the word consciousness was preventing me from gleaning some truth and value (in the form of mind-expansion) from the new idea being presented. My definition was too rigid and incomplete to accommodate this new meaning.
Once I loosened up that definition, I could begin to entertain the idea that, yes, the mineral kingdom (and really any so-called “inanimate” object) is an expression of consciousness energy just as animals and plants are. Nothing is “dead.” But obviously rocks don’t express energy the way rabbits or humans do, so if the term “consciousness” has to mean how we perceive energy being expressed, it’s easy to get stuck there.
Much of the intellectual conflict between human beings stems from the part where we do not share the same definitions of words, but we assume that the other person is working with the exact same base definition that we have.
I learned this very succinctly on a trip back to California in 2022. A casual conversation somehow became an anti-white-men tirade by an otherwise very sweet lady—a friend of a friend. It surprised the hell out of me. So I proceeded to ask her a series of questions. I was trying to connect the dots because she was also very concerned about racism. Railing against caucasian men is both racism and sexism—two “isms” with one stone! Now that’s a lot of bang for the buck. I discovered, through asking her questions, that the definition of racism I was working with and that I assumed “everyone knew” was definitely NOT her working definition. Not even close.
This whole episode helped me realize just how powerful the mind-control actually is on this planet, and why so many people’s heartstrings have become evil puppet strings. Actually, that sounds like it needs to become a new post.
Not Just for Word-Nerds
Have you heard of denotation vs connotation? Denotation would be the dictionary definition of a word, while connotation is more subjective and can encompass alternate meanings and intentions. As an enginerdy person, I love denotations because they’re more precise, like math. The only problem is that the fucking communists have hijacked the English language and the people’s minds, so denotations are not what they used to be. They’re becoming more like detonations. And of course, they also altered the dictionaries so…
Back to my story. This otherwise very nice lady who shockingly spewed so much hate upon the pale-skinned male gender did not, like I said, understand that racism meant (or excuse me, used to mean) making broad statements about or railing against an entire group of people based on the arbitrary quality of race. I asked her point-blank what she thought racism meant, to which she replied “being mean.” Well, I could argue that this creative definition would still apply to her behavior, but I’m not in the business of arguing with people. It’s just information. By studying the brainwashed, it’s easy to see what sort of soap their brains are being washed with.
It was also a potent reminder (yet again) that other people do not necessarily value or enjoy logic and rational thought.
But I’ve digressed terribly! There’s so much to say about the world and I must pace myself in this here blog. Let’s get back to the basic structure of responding vs. reacting.
More about #2: emotional reaction
I said “notice if you experience” an emotional reaction, using the word “experience” deliberately instead of “have.” E-motion is energy in motion. It courses through you but it is not you. Neither are the thoughts that swirl about in your mind. None of this IS you. YOU can observe all of them, so you must be separate from them, eh? YOU are consciousness, which is basically observing (and/or co-creating? or at least allowing) all of this other stuff. Remember, I AM is the only bulletproof true statement! Any words you tack on after the “I am” are optional, limiting in nature, and ultimately subject to change.
Not identifying with emotional reactions makes you calmer, probably healthier, and definitely more fun to be around. It’s not that you don’t or shouldn’t experience emotion, because it’s gonna happen as long as you’re incarnate. Denying or stuffing down emotion is not recommended, as it may lead to stuck energy in the physical body in the form of illness. But you don’t have to take these emotional currents so seriously and use them as verbal or written weapons against other people. That part is totally optional and also not recommended.
When it comes to truthing-sleuthing content, if information triggers an emotional reaction, then you can bet your bottom dollar there is a limiting belief in effect and it’s currently being challenged or activated. Just to be clear, my working definition of “belief” is anything a person believes to be true. In this sense, anything you embrace as a fact or a “given” also qualifies as a belief. Letting go of attachment to beliefs gives you a massive boost of freedom. I don’t know about you, but I’m ALL ABOUT freedom.
An example of how beliefs relate to emotional reactivity: a lot of peeps who are trained and who work in the mainstream medical world might scoff at a post or article that asserts “viruses don’t actually exist.” The intellectual reaction might be “I studied viruses in school so I know all about them and of course they exist. Everyone knows that viruses (virii?) are real.” But the person may also have an emotional reaction of anger, fear, or whatever and lash out at the person who merely considers the idea that viruses don’t exist, let alone endorses it. The ego-intellect is threatened and will turn on you suddenly!
What beliefs are being triggered there? There are probably a plethora. For instance, “I am an authority. How dare you question/contradict me!?”, indicating vulnerable self-esteem. Or there’s the ever-popular “misinformation is dangerous!” which indicates successful brainwashing.
Those “I am” beliefs usually cause the most trouble. If left unexamined, the belief holder may unleash fury on the deliverer of any message perceived as even remotely challenging to the “I am” statement. I wrote about that in another post on Truth Seeking, by the way. Egos are such a buzzkill. This is why I don’t really hang out with people anymore.
Open-Minded Skeptics: More Eager, Less Ego
So what about the Open-Minded Skepticism part? Well, that’s the ideal mode of operation. If you don’t have a need to latch onto beliefs, you are free to move about. There actually is no need to assign big sweeping labels of “True” or “False” onto every bit of information that comes your way. You can just allow things to be undecided. And if you manage your inner reactivity, you can calmly and objectively assess the content of the message without shooting the messenger.
Even if the message seems to lack merit initially, sometimes later on down the road it becomes a puzzle piece for further truthing. If you get in the habit of not judging stuff and just allowing it, there’s no harm. Only the ego thinks there is harm, and it’s the ego who hassles you to make those snap judgments. Pulling rank on the ego is a radical act of self-empowerment, and it’s one of the few surefire ways to make the world a better place. #altruism
Can you dig it? Are you eager to try out these tips? Leave a comment why don’t you? Especially if you have a true tale of ego-sublimation to share. So rare, so inspiring.