@Michelle – repeat after me: My family are not my guinea pigs, My family are not my guinea pigs…

Unless they are.

*innocent blinking*

i sometimes think of this in terms of “truth.” and how that can change, and how it’s different for each person. is anything we feel or know “true” forever? hmmm… i wonder.

love the “you might be right.” i’ll have to try it with my husband =)

It’s all good. Unless it’s not.

Unwavering support, however, for you and your eye-opening posts.
Fact.

I’ve been doing some reading about memory. Seems that our model of memories-as-files-in-a-vault is actually not very accurate, and it is more that we recreate each memory afresh each time.

Problem is that memory feels so monolithic.

Ah, the feelings.

(And thanks for the compliment on the writing style – I accept graciously and with a grinning heart.)

My S was talking about the Fair Witness – in fact he practiced it for a while. I truly think that if we could develop that capacity (as part of us, and not to an annoying extent) we could find our way more… smoothly in the world.

It’s just that feelings/patterns/worldview, etc, warp our view of the facts and we don’t notice.

Might have to have a read of that myself…

Yeah, I’m interested in how this has become an honest change over the past few months – by devoting my time to getting less certain I have genuinely become less certain!

And, yes, genuine humility is a part of it…

You’ve got a great writing style. I hope you know it!

Scary but common. I’ve done it myself, without intending to. I’ve always loved the Robert A. Heinlein quote about getting the facts – I think he was seeing the same challenges in looking for hard in a fluid world:

“What are the facts? Again and again and again – what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history” – what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!”

He had a job role in one of his most famous books, Stranger In A Strange Land, called a Fair Witness. The job was basically being a witness to the facts in a situation, without any extrapolation. For example, a Fair Witness, when asked what color the house on that hill was, would reply “It’s white on this side”. Not “It’s white.” Because perhaps it wasn’t, in the areas out of sight.

And I love that it is not just saying the words “you could be right” but being willing to REALLY TRULY suspend your sense of what you know and imagine you are wrong. @danielleLaPorte recently tweeted to that effect-something like, what if we are all wrong…