We Prefer Our Sociopaths Well Dressed and Spoken

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Cognitive Dissonance

What would you do if I told you not to think about elephants? Yeah, I thought so. Me too!

Effective denial of a subject or thought is actually quite difficult to achieve on a consistent basis, particularly if it carries with it great emotional weight and impact. While the elephant mentioned above might have instantly popped into your mind the moment you read the words, by now it’s beginning to fade from memory…except for the fact I just mentioned it again.

Sorry!

But witnessing an elephant stampede, possibly being endangered by one, or someone being cruel to the animal, beating it mercilessly to compel a certain behavior, might actually leave a lasting impression that is extremely difficult to extinguish. Memory is an interesting phenomenon, one which encompasses sight, sound, smell, taste and touch into a billion different combinations carefully customized to each individual psychology. Continue reading We Prefer Our Sociopaths Well Dressed and Spoken →

A Duty to Know

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Cognitive Dissonance

Conversations Mrs. Cog and I have often revolve around awareness and knowing verses ignorance and belief. These discussions usually boil down to whether or not there is a personal responsibility to know. Or, at a minimum, a responsibility to question what we believe/disbelieve or are told to believe/disbelieve.

The dialogue often stalls when we confront a fundamental question; should we be held responsible to know what we do not know. If it never occurs to us to ask, if someone never informs us of what we don’t know, why would we even question what is commonly accepted as known?

Why indeed. Continue reading A Duty to Know →

The (Mind) Games People Play

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Cognitive Dissonance

Fair warning! This is a long and dense read and not intended for the faint-hearted

While most of us would accept there are two states of mind when it comes to perceiving reality, belief and disbelief, I posit there are three. And this third state of mind, the suspension of disbelief, is employed by nearly all of us the majority of the time when interacting within our own perceived reality.

If we are to recognize the prevailing global cultural insanity as a long duration event, meaning it started many centuries ago and will last many centuries beyond today, being logical and rational, while an essential component of survival, can only be viewed as a significant disability when trying to make sense of an insane world.

This is particularly true when we closely examine group and individual psychology and how it affects everything from culture to money to politics and all the prevailing memes in-between. Any sober assessment of the human condition leads to one conclusion only. Everyone is insane, including you and me. It is only a matter of degree, not if. Continue reading The (Mind) Games People Play →

Wisdom, Experience and Just-In-Time Thinking

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Cognitive Dissonance

I try to remind myself each generation considers itself smarter than the previous iteration. If you follow the bouncing logic ball, this means the next (younger) generation believes itself smarter than its present day cohort. In essence the millennial generation of today feels superior to those older than them while simultaneously inferior to the pack nipping at their heels.

Call it a superiority/inferiority complex, though admittedly the superior portion leads the inferior since we are all immortal gods at that age. Soon enough that wears off, usually around 30ish when we begin to recognize vulnerabilities already present and obvious to all but ourselves.

Ultimately smartness or intelligence is a relative measuring tool. There is no doubt my nineteen year old college student rocket scientist is much more adept at deciphering mathematical equations or manipulating genomes than I am. But can she determine which way a tree will tend to fall before cutting it, or smell snow in the air long before it begins to fall? Continue reading Wisdom, Experience and Just-In-Time Thinking →