The Myth Of Consistency

Consistency requires you to be as ignorant today as you were a year ago.
- Bernard Berenson

It seems often in today’s society, we view someone that changes their mind as fickle.  Look at what happened when John Kerry changed his mind on the Iraq war – he was very successfully (memetically speaking) labeled a “flip-flopper”, as if it is somehow a sign of weakness to use new information and recent evidence to reconsider your beliefs.

In my opinion, the surest sign of willful ignorance and close-mindedness is the inability to back up your assertions with evidence.  Truly intelligent people MUST question their own assumptions constantly, or they risk losing touch with reality.

A draft of a thought

I just found the below in my drafts folder.  I think I wanted to expand on it, but now I’m not so sure it would benefit.  So here it is:

So I just had a thought while I was in the shower (where all my most thoughtful thoughts are thunk) – what if all human anxiety could be alleviated with a simple tweaking of expectations?

Allow me to explain.  My theory is that anxiety stems from expectations that failed to be met.  Like, I expected a promotion and didn’t get it, so now I hate myself, want to kill my boss, etc.   What happens if we simply tweak the expectation?

Beautiful word

cacophony – kuh-KAH-fuh-nee

The opposite of harmony – when many sounds blend, they produce something harsh.  I don’t think harmony and cacophony are mututally exclusive – the THX sound is a good example of cacophony transitioning to harmony.