DUMB IDEAS

February 1, 2012 at 11:30 pm (Thought for the Day)

We as people can believe all kinds of strange things.  But give us a break:  some of these ideas get plugged into our little, unsophisticated minds before we have the skills to assess.  And often those ideas are plugged in by people who used to be little also and were fed those ridiculous ideas before they could fully assess them.  So, they just passed them on as truth.

There’s also the whole concept of the game of “telephone” where one person starts a piece of information, like “I want to make people laugh.” And by the time the sentence gets passed on to the 20^th person, she hears, “I want to bake a giraffe.”.

It’s not so much that we each believe all kinds of strange things.  The dilemma is knowing when it’s strange and needs reassessment, and when, even if it is strange, we want to keep it.

I’m thinking , for example, of the rules of systems.  We get fancy at times these days and talk about healthy, functional systems and unhealthy, dysfunctional systems.  We now know what the rules for these systems are.  The rules of an unhealthy, dysfunctional system are 1) Don’t talk about problems, 2) Don’t have any feelings about what’s happening (except happy of course), and 3) Don’t trust anyone for anything, do it yourself.

Okay, now those are crazy rules, yet because they pervade our society, with penalties for not following them (like we will ostracize you) we pretty well follow these rules, and we think someone who follows other rules is pretty strange.  In order to fit in, in our society, we have to turn our logic upside down and ignore what’s going on inside.  Then we wonder why people are anxious and depressed.

Okay, I don’t know the answer.  Well, I know AN answer, but the cost is so high I don’t even want to mention it.  Well, okay, I’ll tell you my answer, but I’m certainly not expecting you to do it, and I wouldn’t expect that we would ever talk about this again.

One answer is to turn those crazy rules on their heads and find other people who are willing to be brave enough to join you, so you’re not alone.  But you can already tell, this is pretty much an underground movement.  You’ll have to be quite private if you’re going to be so scandalous as to Talk about what’s bothering you, share your Feelings about what’s happening, and Trust the other person to offer support even if they don’t agree.

Alright, I told you it was a costly, crazy idea.  I’m sorry I even mentioned it, and please don’t tell anyone I spoke so blasphemously by suggesting we not follow The Rules.

10/26/11

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