Reevaluate Base Assumptions

By TLS

Are you sure you’re judging things, issues, and situations appropriately, or accurately? Are you judging based on conditioning or emotion? Do you understand the foundational base of your judgments? Are you even able to view from a new perspective?

No? That’s not surprising. I would be willing to bet 99% of us have no idea what or where the source of our judgments come from. It’s only to be expected, we’re not typically taught to think in this manner.

Religion may play a significant part for many in framing judgment, for better or worse, but ultimately it’s just a house of mirrors. One that has been repeatedly disassembled to show glaring inconsistencies and contradictions by far better commentators than I. So we won’t pick at that much here.

I’m talking more about why we may perceive something as good or bad, right or wrong. In order to form a better understanding of any issue at hand, we can’t focus on that particular issue. We need to go back, in time, so to speak. Start working our way down the building blocks of our opinions, perceptions, and preconceived notions.

Thinking in terms of blocks is actually a pretty good analogy. Start from the very beginning (there are those who go far deeper, but we’re going to try to keep this simple) something like “It is better to be alive than dead.” Typically most would agree this is self-evident. Now, mentally lay a row of very large new “perspective” blocks down from horizon to horizon to start our foundation. That’s our base from which to build on. Next, “no pain is better than pain.” Another self-evident, add another layer of slightly smaller blocks. Next, “happy is better than sad;” another, slightly smaller layer of blocks. And so on. Each new subject is represented by a layer of blocks which get smaller and smaller.

Some block layers won’t stretch from horizon to horizon. These blocks get laid down in various areas, some here, some over there. These are specific subject blocks, they may influence the whole, but they don’t form a complete layer from horizon to horizon. This eventually forms hills and valleys. One that, as subsequent layers build, develops a finer and finer grain, because at each layer our blocks get smaller. A very significant outcome of this is nuance. Our perspective blocks are no longer large, which means less simple “right or wrong, yes or no, good and bad, and black or white” opinions. This is usually a good thing. An outcome of this is that many of our views are now on a spectrum, rather than a pole switch.

Keep going in this manner on all subjects. Eventually we’ll have a new perspective from which to evaluate situations. The new perspective may not be much different from the old but, at least we now know why we may think a certain way. Conversely, this little exercise may have significantly altered the perspective of some deeply held beliefs. This is the better outcome I believe. Now we have an altered perception, more than one way of looking at past, current, and future issues.

As mentioned earlier, there are damn few simple views in life. Many of our societal groups want to reduce these complex issues into yes or no, or right or wrong. Rarely are these simplistic views complete or even accurate. But it does tend to segregate, which is often beneficial to that particular group, not so much to the larger society however.

It is rarely bad, and usually good, to consider pretty much anything from different points of view. We may not change our opinions but understanding another’s view will help us better coexist or reach compromises. In today’s world anything we can do to improve communication and cooperation should be pursued with all possible vigor. After all, we don’t live in the simplistic world of Mayberry. I suspect few, if any, actually did. More likely, it was simply a colossal lack of perspective that made it feel like Mayberry. But I guess, my perspective could be wrong.

If you’ve never traced back your assumptions, try it now. Ask yourself: Why do I really believe this? You might be surprised at what you uncover. Share your own experience in the comments, I’d love to hear how your perspective shifts when you rebuild from the ground up.

Clip art

<a href="https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/3d-render-contemporary-characters-team-work-puzzle_35467848.htm#fromView=search&page=1&position=22&uuid=3a829575-7643-4011-a2ff-7f5f6d0f2366">Image by upklyak on Freepik</a>