03-18-2011, 06:07 PM
It's always been common for people to think (and call!) me "weird" because I was different. As it turned out, it was not just me being intelligent, but me thinking for myself - and me spending time leaning and exploring ideas, instead of watching TV, cartoons, MTV, movies, smoking pot, etc. etc.
For a long time I thought there must be something wrong with me. Eventually I concluded that it was just the way things were, and I went off my own direction. As things have come into focus in the last decade, I have concluded that it isn't me being weird, it is me being different. I think for myself, I do things differently because I think differently. I see and understand things differently. I investigate things differently.
One of the biggest differences I seem to have is that when I study something, I study it starting from "I don't know" and then make it show me what it is. I also don't indulge in black and white thinking: there is always some angle I may not be aware of, and I try to keep that in mind.
The biggest problem I see with people in general these days in the United Sates is that decades of advertising hammering in the ideas that we should be lazy and let someone else do all the work, and that we should have whatever we want and have it instantly, have resulted in the populace primarily believing that they shouldn't have to think... TV and other sources will tell them what to think. That laziness leads to a lot of black and white thinking... it must be X or Y; there cannot be any other explanation. Unfortunately, our current scientific community worldwide seems to have a bad case of this sort of faulty thinking.
My experience is that there is ALWAYS a possible explanation we haven't thought of, or maybe we can't even gather the intelligence to conceive of. There's no such thing as black and white.
So I have concluded that I am different, but not strange. I have learned to be careful with people who can't or don't understand what I do. The problem, I believe is that our culture is being destroyed by this sort of TV/movie/radio/music based brainwashing that tells us, "Consume more! Consume whatever is cheapest! Consume whatever is easiest! You shouldn't have to do anything! You shouldn't have to make any effort, or wait for anything!" Consider our current TV lineups and ask yourself, what of today's TV options would be allowed to have been shown on TV 20, 40, 60 years ago? Not a whole lot! Why? Because basically a lot of what's on TV these days amounts to swill.
For a long time I thought there must be something wrong with me. Eventually I concluded that it was just the way things were, and I went off my own direction. As things have come into focus in the last decade, I have concluded that it isn't me being weird, it is me being different. I think for myself, I do things differently because I think differently. I see and understand things differently. I investigate things differently.
One of the biggest differences I seem to have is that when I study something, I study it starting from "I don't know" and then make it show me what it is. I also don't indulge in black and white thinking: there is always some angle I may not be aware of, and I try to keep that in mind.
The biggest problem I see with people in general these days in the United Sates is that decades of advertising hammering in the ideas that we should be lazy and let someone else do all the work, and that we should have whatever we want and have it instantly, have resulted in the populace primarily believing that they shouldn't have to think... TV and other sources will tell them what to think. That laziness leads to a lot of black and white thinking... it must be X or Y; there cannot be any other explanation. Unfortunately, our current scientific community worldwide seems to have a bad case of this sort of faulty thinking.
My experience is that there is ALWAYS a possible explanation we haven't thought of, or maybe we can't even gather the intelligence to conceive of. There's no such thing as black and white.
So I have concluded that I am different, but not strange. I have learned to be careful with people who can't or don't understand what I do. The problem, I believe is that our culture is being destroyed by this sort of TV/movie/radio/music based brainwashing that tells us, "Consume more! Consume whatever is cheapest! Consume whatever is easiest! You shouldn't have to do anything! You shouldn't have to make any effort, or wait for anything!" Consider our current TV lineups and ask yourself, what of today's TV options would be allowed to have been shown on TV 20, 40, 60 years ago? Not a whole lot! Why? Because basically a lot of what's on TV these days amounts to swill.
Subliminal Audio Specialist & Administrator
The scientist has a question to find an answer for. The pseudo-scientist has an answer to find a question for. ~ "Failure is the path of least persistence." - Chinese Fortune Cookie ~ Logic left. Emotion right. But thinking, straight ahead. ~ Sperate supra omnia in valorem. (The value of trust is above all else.) ~ Meowsomeness!
The scientist has a question to find an answer for. The pseudo-scientist has an answer to find a question for. ~ "Failure is the path of least persistence." - Chinese Fortune Cookie ~ Logic left. Emotion right. But thinking, straight ahead. ~ Sperate supra omnia in valorem. (The value of trust is above all else.) ~ Meowsomeness!
