Well-Held Beliefs
The most familiar sheet of water viewed from a new hilltop, yields a novel and unexpected pleasure. When we have traveled a few miles, we do not recognize the profiles even of the hills which overlook our native village…We do not commonly know, beyond a short distance, which way the hills range which take in our houses and farms in their sweep. As if our birth had at first sundered things, and we had been thrust up through into nature like a wedge, and not till the wound heals and the scar disappears, do we begin to discover where we are, and that nature is one and continuous everywhere. It is an important epoch when a person who has always lived on the east side of a mountain, and seen it in the west, travels round and sees it in the east. Yet the universe is a sphere whose center is wherever there is intelligence.
Henry David Thoreau — A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849)
What’s your go-to reaction when you confront a point of view that runs counter to your well-held beliefs? Defriend, run, shut down?
Here’s the problem — some of our beliefs are based in our own ignorance or hand me down ignorance — a simple lack of knowledge or understanding and that’s an issue. Beliefs are not facts, sorry.
If you’ve never actually traveled round and seen the east side how can you hold the view that the west is the best? In making the trip you may find that you change your opinion or strengthen your argument — either way it’s a worthwhile endeavor if you’re open to it.
We don’t consider both sides of an argument in hopes of changing someone else’s mind, we do it in hopes of awakening ours.
Hey, you don’t have to look both ways before you cross a busy street, but it’s often a pretty good idea.
Challenge Question: When did you first start believing _________? Have you ever questioned this belief or sought to learn more about it?
