Probably the greatest handicap in life is having abundant information about what is not true, or is outdated -- in living the future that is happening now. When reality (results) say one thing and all the experts say the same other thing -- producing no favorable advantage in working with that expertise, then one should look for what reality is telling us that the "experts" aren't, as the ultimate arbiter of the truth of the matter. Unfortunately, the present "education system," doesn't teach one from the very beginning to look at one's own unique experience as valid but paradoxically, that an abstract and imaginary "average," "normal," "generalization," is the reality from which we each deviate -- which is entirely the wrong approach, a misunderstanding of why we bother to learn broadly more than our own experience.
What passes for scholarship at many institutions is to what extent one can quote and paraphrase many others -- while one's own insight may count for nothing or be penalized, as though that was the height of educational sophistication. Meanwhile, on the cutting edge of great discoveries, it is recognized that the next great idea is something so preposterously simple and logical that all are dumbfounded that nobody, and especially they themselves, thought of it before -- while all the evidence seemed to shout out the obvious.
In finance, the original observation that "some investments go up and some investments go down," becomes, "over time, all investments go up." To which another expert will append, "in a well-diversified portfolio." It seems to make sense and sounds responsible but is something quite different from the original simple observation, which argues against random diversification and indicates quite plainly that one wishes to have a very select few -- of the beneficial variety. Bad ideas have a tendency to be institutionalized while good ideas tend to be unpopular not because they don't work but because they have to be discovered by individuals and are not just common notions repeated by those who can't tell the difference between a good idea and no idea -- a non-thought.
Lots of rules are created by experts that don't make any sense except one "must" do them or "always should." In activities of their specialty, all common sense is overruled. Rules have to be followed strictly, they warn, or any activity of being human is extremely hazardous. Everyone of their visionary future must first register with their bureaucracy in order to walk, talk, run, jump, and breathe.
It could be that everything that was commonly thought about just about everything could be thought about in a very different way -- so that the problems thought inherent, may not in fact be inherent limitations but only the limitations in the current way of thinking about them. Does the productive exercise of the body have to be hard or could it be easy -- more productively? One of the benefits one hopes to achieve through exercise is the ability to move more easily and gracefully, yet how does one achieve that by conditioning oneself through movements that produce increasing difficulty and awkwardness -- not to mention increasing the risk of injury and illness? Isn't one conditioning himself to move with greater difficulty, effort and resistance? There's no question that such conditioning can produce impressive testament to that kind of difficulty -- just as anything will have a wide range of variance in experience and results. That is what we've been familiar with, but is that the ultimate limits of human development -- or is there the possibility of something beyond? All of that and yet, none of that? Are the extreme fitness fanatic and the couch potato the only two alternatives, or are there conceivably, almost infinite possibilities of human fitness unique to every individual?
Why does work have to be hard? Isn't that usually an indication that one hasn't mastered the understanding of his task or the use of his tools? Certainly, part of any job is to find the easiest, most economical way to do the job and not the hardest, most costly, thereby reducing the time and effort required to perform those tasks so other work can be done, or the same work done better, faster.
On the verge of the 21st-Century, the development taking shape is the passing of mass, pre-digested education (indoctrination) in favor of individualized, self-directed, self-chosen learning. It's the learning, after all, that has value, and not education for its own sake -- whether there are practical applications for that education or not. Very often, education serves no purpose other than to get a passing grade to go on to further education, and as soon as those tests are passed, one immediately forgets everything that was "learned" because there are no daily applications to reinforce that learning. Learning that which is truly meaningful has reinforcement and transferability to any other systematic task resolution. Of all the skills that are most useful, the ability to study any activity without preconceived notions, enables one to solve a problem beyond his conclusions of how a problem has to be solved. And maybe there is no problem but thinking that it is so.
In the financial markets, are fluctuations the risk or the opportunity? It depends on one's interpretation of the event and one's action, responses. To think that one doesn't have to respond, has made the right decision for all time and under all conditions -- is always the problem. Wouldn't it be nice if we could turn to just one station and it would have precisely the program we want to watch at that moment? -- and never have to switch channels again? One recognizes how ludicrous such an expectation would be but doesn't think so for the many other aspects of his life. A life not continually changing, adapting, refining, is a life in deterioration. We learn so many things in school and the media but so very few important things that way. The great lessons we have to learn on our own because they must be custom-designed for who we are, by the foremost expert on who we are -- which of course, is each ourselves.
All we do in living is the investment in the greater possibilities of each present moment that constitute the future. There is no future other than the sum of all the present moments; likewise, there is no past except the sum of the present moments. The only reality obviously, is the present moment -- and everything else is false, merely wishful-thinking or delusion. Nobody gets to the Super Bowl by simply wanting it more than all the others; the only path there is playing the game in front of him as though that was all that mattered. And by doing that, it won't matter if one plays in the Super Bowl or not, because one will have explored the frontier of some further human limit.
If one hasn't sensed it by now, the trend to greater individuality will continue to evolve and accelerate, with some taking a leading role more than others -- who want to be the last to know about such things. For the latter, they're not about to take a chance on any course of action until everybody else is aboard. At that precise moment of their capitulation, most assuredly, the course has begun to change at the front, and the conformist will again be the last to be convinced that anything new has been discovered. Those paradigm shifts might have happened once in a lifetime but now they can happen daily -- depending on where one is in the information chain and how open one is to the new information. Some are open to new information but they don't get any good information while others may get good information but dismiss it because it is not what everybody else is saying in the small pool of opinion in which they swim.
What makes any statement true or valid is that it can be validated -- by anyone, and not just the designated colleagues who went to the same school together. It might be even more accurate to say that what is "true" or "right" is a cultural preoccupation that is no longer drawing future participants. Some lament that there no longer seems to be authoritative figures who we can trust to do our thinking for us when really, that is a very healthy development requiring us to do our thinking for ourselves rather than relying on the expert opinion of old. Some lay people are more informed on certain matters than the professionals in that field may be because they have an interest beyond the making of money from it; that is, they don't do it just for the money and professional standing. But that's beating a dead horse today. The rules have changed. If you can, you do; if you can't, you find out; if you don't have the time or aptitude, you hope you can trust someone; if you can't, you're in trouble.
The sorry truth about many professional people is that everybody they know and contact is a "professional" also; they're in it for the money, first and foremost. However, that is not to say there are not good professionals in every field of human knowledge and endeavor -- but one has to realize that only a few distinguish themselves in that way. There are good and bad teachers just as there are good and bad students, good and bad therapists, good and bad mechanics, good and bad cooks, good and bad men and women, good and bad kids, good and bad writers, good and bad artists. So the broad category doesn't tell us enough information about whether one is good or bad. For that, I think we have to look into what makes someone good or bad in every context, which ultimately means, a good person -- someone we can trust to consider our best interests as well as their own. In many cases, being that good human being may cost one in financial success and professional standing because the professional association is concerned foremost with the promotion of those in the profession rather than the public interest at large. In the Nazi government of the 20th-Century, being a good citizen may have meant executing the orders of the Reich unquestionably. The smaller objectives of a narrow special interest group took precedence over the larger concerns and objectives of humanity.Eventually the greater human impulse reasserts itself and the narrow loses its will and desire to subjugate the larger -- sensing it is not the tide of the future after all, and that which began with so much fervor becomes the collective wrong turn. That's always been the good news. The bad news are the exceptions and that is why it is "the news." But one should not mistake "the news" with the totality of what is going on. That is simply some people's idea of entertainment -- to dwell upon the bad, the sensational. It does have a certain fascination among those who think it is important to have an opinion about everything no matter how irrelevant and uninformed they may be -- because they feel they have little impact on their own lives, so it is important to try to change the thinking of others -- instead of their own. And it is always the changing of one's own thinking that is the action of power and significance -- that makes any difference.
Groups work tirelessly to convince their members that individually they are powerless and only collectively can one make a difference -- therefore sowing the seeds of despair in individual initiative and action. It becomes their disempowering self-fulfilling truth. How often do we buy into this kind of truth offered by those who we think might know what they're talking about? Are they speaking from the confidence of actual experience or just with the techniques and tools of persuasion -- hoping nobody will know the difference?
Most of us are trained to be aware of propaganda techniques employed on us but a smaller number are on the other side -- learning how to use them more effectively, probably calling themselves communications professionals of some stripe. They would like to believe that their task is to make arcane, technical expertise understandable to the lay person, acting as the medium of these exchanges -- or simply, the media. Is this necessary or one more layer of intermediaries that have outlived their usefulness? Do we need people who know how to write but have nothing to say? Do we need a story or is the information enough? Does information have to be "packaged" before people will want it? Is there still that resistance to learning -- or was that resistance only to indoctrination disguised as an education, knowledge?
A different way of thinking about conditioning is as an investment rather than an expenditure, and in this mode, one is not trying simply to expend energy, thinking that alone is enough to get favorable results but in visualizing the favorable development and behaving to acknowledge and reinforce that different reality. A poor person behaves that way no matter how much money they have while the rich person perceives they have an abundance with the same resources available to them, and more importantly, realizes that his resources are not only that contained in their purse but is more largely the collective bank that he accesses judiciously, largely in the form of information. The problem for many is relying on "packaged" information exclusively and not realizing that content has been carefully edited to produce a certain response or impulse -- by the media specialist. Usually though, they work by the formula that is the current "hot idea" of the marketing industry so that after several contacts, one will develop a certain immunity to such appeals until finally, one learns to seize the initiative in determining what inputs he is exposed to, having learned that "free offers" and other free programming, may be the least productive way to go. But rather than being skeptical of all information, one is best off keeping an open mind to all information and then being reflective on the new information, perhaps even setting up one's own experiments and experiences in light of that new perspective -- to see whether there is a difference in proceeding with a different set of premises.
Now many on hearing a new perspective think that verification and validation is simply a matter of asking a second opinion of another expert from the same school of thought, much like the news reporter using the journalistic style of calling a select list of experts all across the country to verify an idea and to give their piece greater credibility. Then, to show a common touch and add even more credibility to expert opinion, they might randomly (deliberately) select a man in the street flattered to be asked their opinion -- often having not the slightest clue to what is being discussed but knows how the experts on television act like and does their best imitation of "expert opinion." It doesn't occur to the reporter that in first carefully eliciting the expert opinion in one field, a better "control" would be to elicit expert opinion in another -- seemingly unrelated field, because expertise in any other field shares the same systematic approach and discipline in their observations than would a completely random, unprepared person talking off the top of their head. That's not a valid control, just like asking the original expert to answer an off-the-wall question would give no indication of the thought he has put into the work he is offering the journalist for wider acknowledgment -- in short, as many have surmised by now, is not conducted scientifically but rather, is institutionalized hearsay pretending to be professional and systematic -- "objective."
So despite the fact that communications technology and equipment have evolved to awesome capabilities, the possibilities of dissemination of truly useful and powerful influence in our societies have virtually not been tapped. If everyone in society was armed with all the information rather than just the conventional wisdom or hearsay, the quality of life for the average person would be remarkable indeed. The solution is not more education of the past -- as evidenced by the insurmountable social problems and dilemmas of the present -- but requires a complete reassessment and re-creation of strategies not in understanding present knowledge but in discovering the unknown in what was previously thought to be the known and presumed. That shift, would totally transform life as we've known it and unleash breakthroughs every day of our lives, improving the quality of our existences for the entirety of one's span.
And it doesn't matter from what point we begin, advanced or disadvantaged; that is the key for unlocking the greater future we can all access. In this progress, comparisons between one and another are totally meaningless. All that matters is one's own growth rate and trajectory. It's like the question, "Would you rather receive a one-time payment of $1,000,000 or 1 cent on the first day and have that amount doubled for 30 days?" It would seem obvious to most that there's no way 1 cent doubled for 30 days could ever grow to a substantial sum but it in fact amounts to $5,368,709.12! How much would life change with that kind of exponential growth? It's possible because growth in understanding is not limited by material considerations as would be problematic if instead of receiving 1 cent, one would receive one new car on the first day, etc. With growth in understanding, nobody yet has come close to the limits. Most are still wondering what to do with their 2 cents worth and can't wait to get on the talk shows for the penny for their thoughts.
We take for granted that we always see optimally when, like any other human faculty, it can be trained for optimal performance and service. How many among us recall taking a class in "How to see?" More likely, vision was merely regarded as a "normal" process of development. Yet even the prodigy of every field flourishes only when there are optimal conditions of nurturance -- even when those conditions are produced inadvertently and unsystematically. The propagandists like to highlight the story of the success that rose through great adversity while ignoring the many more produced by favorable conditions. It is the tendency of such observers to even begrudge the success brought about by propitious circumstances; they wish to perpetuate the myth that all in life is random behavior, and every possibility is as probable as any other. People of that persuasion are enamored by the cliches of easy generalities like "Stocks that go up must come down, and stocks that go down, must come up," "People who are rich must be unhappy," "Only the poor are virtuous," " I saw it on television, therefore it must be true," or, "I saw it on television, therefore it must be false," etc. -- sweeping generalizations that prevents them from doing the productive work of making valid discriminations and distinctions. When given a simple opportunity to find out the truth for themselves, they refuse, proudly proclaiming that they know what they want to know, and that is all they need to know. Of course there are no laws that one has to know anything more than what they already know -- but that puts them at a great disadvantage living in a society in which some choose to incessantly perfect their understanding of the many things, especially of the many things they previously thought they knew about.
In the 21st-Century, those two types of personalities are distinctly emerging and differentiating, so while ostensibly living in the same world, their experiences are totally different, and one "sees" the world deteriorating, disintegrating, fragmenting, while the other sees evolution, progress, and resolutions leading to ever-higher possibilities. It is a personal choice, and those who are "too busy" to make those choices for themselves will have their choices made for them. For life at this latter end, it always seems that laws and policies are being passed restricting their freedoms, their choices, while for those operating at the other end of experience, laws and policies merely restrict choices they would not imagine making in the first place, restricting or violating the freedoms and rights of others.
Powerful self-interest groups would like us to believe that only they can dictate the choices, only they can serve as sources of information, only they can moderate the dialogue of inquiries -- when in truth, the highest cultural imperative of every society is the freedom to know, to find out all the information, of all the different possibilities. One is continually amazed at how often a salesperson will try to convince him that what he has to offer are the only options available in the world -- as though there were no other, but the person who makes it his job to look around, knows he hasn't seen everything yet. The information, the products, the services are out there -- the contributions and offerings of 5 billion people trying to make the world a little better place. The object is not to simply make more money but to create value, usefulness, a better way of doing things -- for that exchange is what is valued, or one would not part with money to obtain it. Many lose that point, that focus, and are encouraged by salespeople who advise, "You get what you pay for." Rather, I think it is more accurate to reflect, "You pay for what you get."