Walls in the mind
They cripple and they bind
Keep you deaf
Keep me blind
Keep us both confined
Those are the words from a song I wrote years ago. They came into my head, loud and clear, after a particularly frustrating attempt to reach someone. Today I heard them again in my head. Once again I was frustrated by all kinds of walls in the mind - such powerful forces against seeing, hearing, registering what is going on.
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Examples.
I watch a documentary on suicide bombers and their allies. A smiling woman talks sweetly of feeling privileged that she was able to help someone fulfill his mission in life, to blow himself up along with as many Israelis as possible. A voice from off-camera asks, "Didn't children die that day? After all, it was a family restaurant." The woman continues smiling her peaceful smile, "Yes, I think so. Three children." The off-camera voice, quiet but much less peaceful, says, "It was nine. Nice children." The woman nods a friendly, absentminded nod. "Ah, yes, nine." It clearly does not matter at all to her.
My partner is impressed by Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, on the imminent danger of global warming. He wants everyone to watch it. I am glad Al Gore's film was able to reach him - I was impressed by it too. I also ask: why did other sources not reach him? Why did all the information that has been coming at him, year after year, not reach him? More generally, why have so many people not taken in the information and reacted to it?
I cared about global warming twenty years ago. I've cared about so many environmental issues. Some other people also cared. Al Gore was able to understand, over two decades ago, the information coming at him. But many did not, could not or would not hear, see, connect the dots.
More care now. Slowly the information does get past the inner barriers. But even now, according to An Inconvenient Truth, 50% of non-scientists think we need to get more information before we decide that global warming is actually happening or something serious. 100% of scientists, looking at the data, agree global warming is a major threat. In other words, 50% of people - due to whatever reason - are not registering loud and clear information.
Walls in the mind. They are all around.
The majority of my students - I teach at a college - come into my classes with the rigid belief that all opinions are equal. How I dare I say they are wrong, I have been asked. How can I not, I answer - when all the evidence is that they are wrong. But it's an opinion, an area where right and wrong does not exist, many hold.
But the opinion that blacks, Jews, women, gays and lesbians are inferior - those are all opinions.
I have had very nice students - in favor of all kind of rights - hold that they agree with me, but it's just a matter of opinion. In other words, no better than any other opinion.
Some students are horrified, outraged, shocked, that I can flat out say they are wrong. But they are saying I am wrong, I counter. No they're not, absolutely definitely not, some insist. And they waffle words, to try to show that I am wrong to believe they are wrong, but that they are not saying I am wrong. More walls in the mind.
For more of the arguments they give, and more of my counter-arguments, see The Opinion that All Opinions Are Equal.
http://www.elsas-word-story-image-idea-music-emporium.com/the-idea-emporium-stupid-opinion-1.html
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I come back to the word piece -
Walls in the mind
They cripple and they bind
Keep you deaf
Keep me blind
Keep us both confined
I remember that, with "keep me blind", I found it hard to decide - should it be, "keep me blind" or "keep you blind". I decided not to make the other totally out of touch with reality, and myself totally able to perceive.
But how am I blind, I ask myself today? In part, through my own walls in the mind - much harder for me to perceive than those in other people. That's the worst thing about those inner walls - they are invisible from the inside. They set limits, like the nose filters what we can smell, and our eyes filter what we can see.
It's only when we change the filters, the walls in the mind, that we change what we perceive.
So I will start with a wall of mine.
A wall of mine - I have found it so hard to invest in myself, my projects. A huge barrier against that, even when I was giving hugely to back another's dream - something I have done more than once. I am trying my best now to take that barrier down, to put into my project - into this site, into my creative projects - as much as into other things. Hard to believe my projects deserve more than my labor, especially. Much of my life, I've given masses of time. Not easy to invest money. And even harder to see the steps to having the project make money.