The More You Have…
The more you have, the more you have to lose. As obvious as this statement sounds it has a great impact on virtually every area of our thinking. The nicer your car is, the more you will mind if someone steals it which means you are more paranoid about people stealing your car which adds to extra worry when your parking in a “bad” section of town.
It also applies albeit indirectly to worldviews; the closer an idea is to the core of your worldview and identity the more devastating it would be to have it suddenly proven false. Which is why us humans have a tendency to defend those core worldviews no matter whether they are right, wrong, or just plain ridiculous.
How does one get around this human trait to the more noble and surely more valuable trait of being able to dispassionately examine all the ideals you hold and rationally assign them to either the true, false, or unable to determine as true or false bin as necessary. Well the best way that I’ve found to do this is to make my core identity around being a “seeker of truth” and taking pride in questioning my currently held assumptions. It may seem a bit excessive to some, but to me it seems to be the only way I can make sure I am not holding lies close and rejecting any contradictions.
on August 11, 2006 on 1:18 am
Or perhaps the more you value something, the more you stand to lose? Because it’s something more than just having. The car owner has to place some sort of intrinsic value on the nice car, such as thinking nice cars equal prestige and prestige equals self-worth, or something along those lines. Hmm and is being a “seeker of truth” right, wrong, or just plain ridiculous? The truth is what you make it, after all. I am commenting and this is my comment.