Imagine that there is a plate of cookies in front of you...one Oatmeal, one Chocolate Chip and one Sugar. You are only allowed to choose one. Which one do you choose?
Sure this is an overly simplistic view, but why did you choose one cookie over another?
We all have preconceived notions of how things are supposed to taste, and we all have the flavors that we are drawn too...but if we never experienced all of the flavors....how do we really know which one is our favorite?
In his 1961 book "A Stranger in a Strange Land", Robert Heinlien introduced the world to the concept of "grok". Grok means to understand something thoroughly and intuitively. And how can you possibly understand something without experiencing it first hand?
"I don't grok that."
"Grokking that is a little difficult for me right now."
"I grok what you are saying."
There are wars raging today because of a specific part of human nature that is a learned behavior. Humans run on an interesting tightwire between pack animals and solitary beasts.
As pack animals, we surround ourselves with the trappings and social groups that make us comfortable and define our identity. But we practice these behaviors to our own detriment. We use the "comfortable" to help us define what is "uncomfortable" without ever experiencing the thing on which we are passing judgement.
As free willed individuals we also have the option to run as solitary beasts. Experiencing the things that the others of our pack may not be inclined to try.
Yet, so many of us choose not too roam on our own, or try to understand different points of view.
Prejudice is born of this pack behavior. The pack can be drawn on many lines... racial, religious, socio-economic, gender, sexual preference (just to name a few). The battle between "them versus us" has raged and will rage until the end of time, part of that instinct is how we evolved and survived so it isn't really a bad thing.
However, now that we are the dominant species and we bend the earth to our will, shouldn't these feelings of competition also evolve? Maybe to work together in a spirit of cooperation?
Prejudices are a good thing, they are tools and we need to understand them within ourselves.
Example: if all the Oatmeal Cookie eaters band together, there will eventually be a shortage of Oatmeal cookies.
The magic happens when an Oatmeal Eater meets up with a Sugar cookie eater....suddenly there is no fighting...add a Chocolate Chip Eater and there is an equilibrium. The problem happens when they start to argue over who's cookie is superior. Maybe we need to start to admit that we don't have to agree in which cookie is best. We each have our belief which is better for us, personally.
Wouldn't life be interesting if we started to leverage our strengths and weaknesses and use them to build a better place for everyone?
Make your choices for yourself, but don't do it out of an ignorance of what the other choices have to offer. Drink in what they mean. Grok them.
You still might make the same choice, but you might have a little better understanding of the world and how you fit.
No comments:
Post a Comment