The avenue of hard knocks has a well established track record rewarding its diligent students with a desire to learn more about life than that which our mirror image presumes when reflecting all that our frustrations, and grievances would have us believe is how life is.
Transforming our mirror image into a window providing us with a view on life that hitherto had been nothing more than our prejudices masquerading as our considered opinion, becomes our reward for choosing to look beyond our self constructed cell that had denied us our birth right to examine all that life has on offer to liberate us from our self imposed exile.
“I am a cage, in search of a bird.” ― Franz Kafka
Our perception is more often, than not biased, selective, and malleable sufficiently to induce us to believe that our experiences provide us all that we will ever need to know the truth. In other words we tend to demonstrate biases in our perceptual judgments that are aligned with our motivations and wishes. At the end of a televised football game I am faced with the awareness that the viewers offer opinions that match their easy willingness to prejudge the performance of the individual players.
In our one, to one interactions with our fellow travellers we pronounce our assessments as if we are privy to every aspect of their daily life, when in reality we know little, or nothing about them.
Being aware that others could be seeing events differently from us, and neither of us is necessarily closer to objective reality, we would be better able to empathise with how they act and feel by recognising that we learn from others much worth learning.
I am wiser than this man, for neither of us appears to know anything great and good; but he fancies he knows something, although he knows nothing; whereas I, as I do not know anything, so I do not fancy I do. In this trifling particular, then, I appear to be wiser than he, because I do not fancy I know what I do not know. ~Plato's Apology, Socrates
Socrates wisely teaches us that when we set our selves up as as an oracle of all truth, and virtuous behaviour we might well be deceiving our selves into believing that are student days are behind us.
“Be gentle to all, and stern with yourself.” ― St. Teresa of Avila
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