Strong Opinions Lightly Held

In the prologue to The Power of Impossible Thinking, also mentioned in Tom Peter's post, it states:

"Researchers asked subjects to count the number of times ballplayers with white shirts pitched a ball back and forth in a video. Most subjects were so thoroughly engaged in watching white shirts that they failed to notice a black gorilla that wandered across the scene and paused in the middle to beat his chest. They had their noses so buried in their work that they didn't even see the gorilla.

"What gorillas are moving through your field of vision while you are so hard at work that you fail to see them? - The Power of Impossible Thinking

I've been drafting this post since this book recommendation by Tom Peters stated: "No dogmatism. No mysticism." The trend continues with the recent aforementioned post where Tom indicates "that doesn't translate into goopy self-help jelly." Don't mean to pick on Tom - he's just prolific - as this is simply common business sentiment not at all peculiar to Tom.

If I should go out of church whenever I hear a false sentiment I could never stay there five minutes. But why come out? The street is as false as the church. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

I just love Emerson. One could easily substitute in 'dogmatic' for 'false' (for what is 'false' is often in the eye of the beholder.)

Dogma is all around us. One definition of dogma: A tenet is that which is maintained as true with great firmness. I endeavor to do more to cast off my own dogmas from my mind than to defend against others.

Everyone filters and colors things according to their own perceptions and preconceptions and beliefs and agenda and conditioning. It's safest to assume you never read or heard anything truly objective. Be doubly wary of anyone that believes they're objective. But so what? I'm not exactly a big fan of extreme dogma myself, but like Emerson I would find I'd be turned off every few minutes if I let it get to me. There is often some value to be gained if one bores through the dogma and drills a little deeper (yeah, heaps of sawdust is the main outcome once in a while).

Be willing to be influenced. Be pliable, be flexible, be open, be curious. Yet don't buy into everything verbatim either. A friend told me that a motto of Paul Saffo, Director for the Institute for the Future, is: "Strong opinions - lightly held."

A former CEO was questioned about his choice of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People on the list of (rather hefty-serious) business books that most influenced him in business. He said: "Welcome outside influences. One thing I learned from 7 Habits as well as my kids is how to be a better listener."

Another CEO allowed himself to dig further on his own terms even though a particularly dogmatic animal-rights activist bugged the hell out of him.

As for mystics, a mystic "plumbs the depths of the self and reality in a radical process of meditative self-discovery to discover the true nature of reality experientially." The key word is experientially.

Although nature commences with reason and ends in experience it is necessary for us to do the opposite, that is to commence with experience and from this to proceed to investigate the reason. - Leonardo da Vinci

Knowledge can be communicated, but not wisdom. One can find it, live it, be fortified by it, do wonders through it, but one cannot communicate and teach it. - Siddhartha, by Hermann Hesse

Wisdom is the daughter of experience. - Leonardo da Vinci

As Anthony De Mello says the best that sages (yeah, he probably meant mystics) can possibly do is point to the moon but that usually distracts most people into oohing and aahing over the finger. The truest mystics typically are not dogmatic because they realize they cannot convey wisdom through the conduit of language.

Those who know do not speak; those who speak do not know. - Lao-Tze, Tao Te Ching

Just because it sounds woo-woo do not mistake it for the words of a mystic.

But why imprison your mind by constraining it and consciously filtering anything -- whether it smacks of dogmatism, mysticism or any category for that matter? I've waded chest-deep in "goopy self-help jelly" and still pulled out a diamond in the rough often enough. I'm getting pretty discriminating - but I'd say probably on the order of 5% of self-help books might be worth reading and of those maybe 30% is good content. And I'd say a fairly similar ratio holds for business books. Or blogs. Or you-name-it.

My point: Be open to everything. Sift gently, but comprehensively. Assume nothing. Question everything. Hold opinions lightly not firmly.

Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear." - Thomas Jefferson

If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties. - Francis Bacon

What gorillas are moving through your field of vision while you are so hard at work [at certainty, at avoidance, at blind-folded fear, at fill-in-the-blank] that you fail to see them?

Comments

[CM]

Cool/interesting post (...as your posts usually are. Even the recent "inadvertant" ones (grin)).

Reminds me of Paul, in his letter to the church in Thessalonica:

"Test everything. Hold on to the good." - 1 Thessalonians 5:21