Month: March 2018

To make you think on Wisdom

 

Just questions on :- Wisdom

* What is it that gets in the way of wisdom?
* Are we wise when we are born and learn foolishness? share your thoughts with others.
* Is there always a wise way forward in any situation? share your thoughts with others.
* What is it that a wise person does less than others?
* What is it that a wise person does more than others?
* What motivates a foolish person?
* What motivates wise people?
* “Why do fools rush in where angels fear to tread?”
* How do you know you are being wise and how do you know you’re not?
* In what ways is wisdom distinguished from knowledge?
* What is always true of wisdom?
* How can the receiving of wisdom be verified?
* How does it get received?
* What has to be the case for wisdom to be exchanged?
* How is it passed on?
* How is it accessed?
* How is it held?
* Where is it held?
* How is it created?
* What is wisdom specifically?
* Is love connected with wisdom?
If it is explain how
if it is not share your thoughts with others
* How is wisdom today different / same as in the days of Socrates (circa 430bc)?
* What makes you call a person wise?
* How are wisdom and context related, if at all?
* If wisdom is not present, what is?

* Can there ever be situations where wisdom cannot / must not prevail? share your thoughts

* What wakes us up to wisdom, makes us aware of it?
* How do you distinguish wisdom from pragmatism.

* Give a metaphor for wisdom?
* What issues would there be in the world if everyone was wise?
* Is wisdom valued in today’s world? where? when? how?
* What do wise people, focus on / pay attention to?
* What makes wisdom valued?
* If you could do one thing to help wisdom prevail in the world, what would that be?
* Give a synonym and antonym for wisdom
* Castaway on a desert island, would you prefer your ‘Man Friday’ to be clever or wise? is it possible to be one without the other? discuss
* What question about wisdom, would you ask?

Finally:-

  • When are you wise?
  • When are you not?
  • What makes the difference?

 

The Arc of Uncertainty

 

What is this all about?

“The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition that impels us to unfold our powers.” Erich Fromm

In my thinking about certainty and the brain,  it has become clear to me, that :-

  • We are born – we are uncertain
  • We learn – we become certain
  • We learn – we become uncertain again

In other words as we learn, we become certain, about what we learn, for example, Santa Claus 🙂 ….and then no Santa Claus 🙁 then as parents 🙂

The brain uses what it learns to  predict, to be ‘certain’ about what will happen in reality and then how to deal with that.  See diagram below

As the diagram says, prediction is a primary function of the brain, using the experience it has built up, the Beliefs / Lenses it has laid down, about how to deal with reality.

Because our brain really does like to be certain and does not like being uncertain, it can become quite stubborn, in clinging on to its beliefs  , as you may recognise,when you are holding on to your Point of View as if your very life depended on you being right 🙂

You may notice, that there are many of us who are certain about many things, triggering this quote, “Beware the man who is certain, he is the cause of all the problems in  the world!”

If we reach (not all of us do), the second ‘age of uncertainty’ on the Arc, then we are ‘OK’ at that time, with being uncertain, exploring, learning and realising most of our ‘learned certainty’ before, was an illusion 🙂

Reality will do what it does, (it is what it is). You may believe you can control it (the illusion). You cannot.

The next time you react emotionally, see if you can notice who or what, you are trying to control? (Because you were ‘certain’ reality would do as you had predicted / believed it would and there was a mismatch)

As human beings, one of the main ways we stress, is by setting an expectation (prediction) that then, is not met 🙂

The level to which we stress, is directly proportional to the attachment we have to the outcome being the way we predicted 🙂

If you detect “should, must, have to, ought to,” in a sentence somewhere, then there will be levels of stress, when reality does what it does and outcomes do not match the expectations / predictions,  made by your brain

  • Where are you on the Arc?
  • How certain are you of that answer?
  • What are you currently trying to control in reality, that is stressing you?
  • What would it mean, for you, if your beliefs were just that, beliefs?
  • What changed (needs to change) in you, for you to be ok with reality being uncertain?

Feel the Fear – Do it anyway.

 

What is the purpose of fear?

What outcome is that e-motion focused on?

Primarily Safety – to keep us safe, is one of the main reasons we become afraid, see fight, flight, freeze.

Let’s look at the SCARF model again

As David says, fundamental drivers of the brain are perceived threat and reward. In his SCARF paper he talks of an underlying principle that the brain operates on, Minimise Threat – Maximise Reward (Avoid  – Approach) with a huge bias toward Minimise Threat (keep us safe).

Collaborating & Influencing using SCARF

So how does fear stop us?  We hold beliefs about ourselves, often learned early in life, about what we can or can’t do, oh and we are right about those beliefs being ‘true’  🙂

Looking at the picture above, familiar  thinking / behaviour has the potential to trigger reward (dopamine) and it does. There is Certainty (one of the SCARF domains) about the familiar – we know what is going to happen. As the slide says even if the familiar thing is ‘bad’ for us we get a reward from the brain, see addiction. 

New thinking / behaviour on the other hand triggers a perceived threat state, we are uncertain, not sure about what may happen, if we think in this new way, believe this new thing, act in this new way, we then trigger an amygdala flood.

How old do you think we are when we first perceive threat and reward?

As a child, we build patterns based on what our brain ‘learns’in terms of avoiding threat. The brain then uses these learned ways of thinking and behaving and they become familiar, laid down as patterns (which take no conscious effort to evoke when required).  When we follow these familiar ways, we don’t get nasty threat feelings.  Of course  we are right when we justify those ways 🙂

What is happening?

One of the things that happens, is that we learn we do not like the effect of the threat response and the feelings it evokes within us.  We then become afraid of feeling that feeling. 🙂 The brain being the brain, learns “ah ok if we don’t go to that threat state then we won’t get that horrible feeling” and we’ll feel ‘safe’! Oh and being the brain I know  I am right about that 🙂

So that’s what we’ll do, we’ll just not go there and that’s a habit formed 🙂

What to do?

We need to go there 🙂 feel the fear and do it anyway. We think it / do it and nobody dies 🙂 We ride through the feelings of sick in the stomach (because blood moves to our muscles to get ready to fight or flight) of the rising heart rate, shallow breathing, dry mouth etc. We ride it out and in so doing our brain learns that actually,  we can do it or think it 🙂 🙂

It may be useful to use the name it, claim it, tame it method here also. E.g. if you are feeling uncertain, just say “there goes my certainty trigger”

As you triumph over the fear / threat response doing the ‘new way’ will become easier and end up as the preferred way.

What about adrenaline junkies?

I’m not one 🙂  It would appear that they relish and look for the rush generated by the Fear/ Stress reaction in the mind and body

  • What will you now feel the fear about and then do anyway?