Being a parent is proving to be a great platform for gaining insight into human behavior. Lately I have noticed Zavier does some things over and over again, which I think gives me insight into some of his perceptions of the way the world works. It is particularly cool when I am able to see how these differ from the reality of how the world works.
There is a self-help book titled "The Road Less Traveled". I can’t remember the author’s name, but in that book he describes the process of growing up as a painful process of re-learning. While I am not convinced his examples are accurate (nor are they provable) I do think his premise is correct. As soon as we become conscious of the world around us we must begin forming hypotheses about the nature of things. We must even believe some of these to be truths. A classic example is that we learn we can sit on a chair and the chair will not let us fall. Unfortunately, most of our "truths" are wrong.
Throughout our lives we revise our perceptions and alter our opinion of the nature of things. When we are young we must do this very frequently, but as we grow older we can start to get complacent and live within our perception in order to prevent the pain of growing our minds. I am starting to ramble, so I am going to give a good example of this from Zavier.
When we go out to eat, Zavier often times drinks from a to-go cup with a lid and a straw. Eventually the liquid gets below the bottom of the straw and stops coming out. Zavier has learned that flipping the straw gives him more to drink when it stops coming. What I know happens is that when he flips the straw he pushes it down further down into the liquid (mostly because the floating ice is also lower so it is more unobstructed further down). His perception of reality serves him well, but it is wrong. Someday he will learn that he can move the straw without flipping it end-to-end and still get more to drink. He will be better off then too.
Watching him reminds me that there are ways I am flipping the straw end-to-end. I have a renewed desire to be open to disproving my own perceptions. I will be better off in the long-run.
-Jackson
P.S. The problem with skills/traits like open-mindedness and logic, is that everyone thinks they are good at it. Unlike math, there is no test to prove that you have ppor logic or are closed-minded.
