“Vivir es transitar desde el casi todo es verdad hacia el casi todo es mentira”.
Para los que hemos hecho esa transición de forma dramáticamente completa, para los desahuciados, para los que ya hemos recorrido los 9 círculos con Virgilio, para los que ya sabemos, para los liberados de esperanza y necesidad, solo queda gestionar la mentira.
No es triste (aunque pueda parecerlo de entrada), es sencilla y abrumadoramente revelador.
Mientras aún crees en verdades, hay miedo a cuestionarlas, o a que alguien lo haga por ti. Eres beligerante en la defensa de tus principios, valores y fundamentos. Sin ellos, el suelo se mueve bajo tus pies y la sensación de angustia al sentir que pierdes tus anclajes, te obliga a defenderte desesperadamente, ante cualquier situación, reflexión o persona que cuestione tu verdad. Sólo hay que leer los periódicos, encender 5 minutos el televisor o mirar fríamente los conflictos personales a nuestro alrededor, para comprobar hasta qué punto el miedo nos convierte en animales feroces contra lo diferente, contra aquello que no comprendemos, contra lo que nos obliga a cuestionarnos.
Cuando ya no te quedan verdades, eres libre, ya no hay miedo. La vida está transitada. Y, aunque sea una paradoja, és entonces cuando empieza de verdad.
Sólo hay un miedo desde ese lugar: Pensar que se puede de nuevo transitar, inversamente, desde el casi todo es mentira al casi todo es verdad. El primer viaje (el que anuncia Wagensberg) es doloroso, pero natural (todos estamos en algún punto de ese continuo). El segundo es aterrador.
Entradas
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Tres voces contra los terrores recurrentes:
Un poco más abajo Wagensberg reconoce:
“Un solo día com el uso exclusivo de la verdad sería insufrible” [12]
Un rato antes Nietzsche (Götzen-Dämmerung/Crepúsculo de los ídolos) filosofa:
6. Hemos eliminado el mundo verdadero; ¿qué mundo ha quedado?, ¿acaso el aparente?... ¡No!, ¡al eliminar el mundo verdadero hemos eliminado también el aparente!
(Mediodía; instante de la sombra más corta; final del error más largo; punto culminante de la humanidad ...)
Y, en medio, Dorothy Parker (Inventory) va al grano, lista como el hambre:
... Three be things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hoper and a sock in the eye.
Pues eso.
Pero elijamos una media de un color agradable!!! El mundo siempre será como lo queramos ver
Por mi lila!
Y, evidentemente, "hope" y no "hoper". O sea (y ya puestos entero):
Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.
Four be the things I’d been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.
Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.
Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye.
Speaking of Blogs and WIKIS...some thoughts from people past and present who did not have the benefit of such technology...
If you want to build a ship, then don't drum up men to gather wood, give orders, and divide the work. Rather, teach them to yearn for the far and endless sea.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Tell me and I'll forget. Show me and I'll remember. Involve me and I'll understand.
- Confucius
It is insight into human nature that is the key to the communicator's skill. For whereas the writer is concerned with what he puts into his writing, the communicator is concerned with what the reader gets out of it.
- William Bernbach
The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when someone asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.
- Henry David Thoreau
Asking the right questions takes as much skill as giving the right answers.
- Robert Half
The truth isn't the truth until people believe you, and they can't believe you if they don't know what you're saying, and they can't know what you're saying if they don't listen to you, and they won't listen to you if you're not interesting, and you won't be interesting unless you say things imaginatively, originally, freshly.
- William Bernbach
Never mistake legibility for communication.
- David Carson
The greatest problem in communication is the illusion that it has been accomplished.
- George Bernard Shaw
Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of a witness.
- Margaret Miller
You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.
- Naguib Mahfouz
I have found that it does not help, in the long run, to begin my inquiries from the standpoint of the world as a problem to be solved. I am more effective, quite simply, as long as I can retain the spirit of inquiry of the everlasting beginner.
- David Cooperrider
When your work speaks for itself, don't interrupt.
- Henry Kaiser
The most important thing in communication is to hear what isn't being said.
- Peter F. Drucker
The extent to which you are able to transform your self-concern into other-concern will determine your effectiveness in getting others to follow along.
- Unknown
Confabulation: how our minds just make things up
by Andy Smith
The Fool from the Rider-Waite Tarot deck
It seems that we are not as much in control of our selves and our decisions as our subjective experience would suggest. In fact, most of our decisions are made unconsciously by the "elephant" of our unconscious processing (in Jonathan Haidt's useful metaphor from his brilliant book The Happiness Hypothesis) for while the main job of the "rider" of conscious awareness, who thinks and feels as if he is in control, is actually to make up justifications of the elephant's behaviour after the event. These explanations may bear no relation to the actual reasons driving the unconscious processing.
This process, called 'confabulation', was first noticed in the 1880s when Russian psychiatrist Sergei Korsakoff observed some of his patients making up often impossible stories to cover gaps in their memories caused by previous alcohol abuse. It has also been noticed in people with brain damage and some stroke patients as they concoct elaborate alternative explanations for the effects of their impaired brain function.
You might think that confabulation happens only when the functioning of the brain has been in some way disrupted. However, research suggests that confabulation is something we all do, a lot of the time, because we don't usually have access to the real (unconscious) reasons why we do things.
For example, Nisbett and Wilson's classic experiment in 1977 asked people which of four garments laid out from left to right they preferred. 40% of people preferred the rightmost garment - as expected, since people will tend to choose the rightmost item in a series, other things being equal. When asked why they chose that one, the subjects talked about the quality of the weave and the vividness of the colour. But the items were identical! (Nisbett, R.E. and Wilson, T.D. (1977). "Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes". Psychological Review, Vol 84 pp 231-259.)
What's more, if we change our minds about something, we tend to forget that our original opinion is different - as in Goethals and Reckman's 1973 experiment (Psyblog: Our Secret Attitude Changes).
Helen Phillips' illuminating article Mind fiction: Why your brain tells tall tales (New Scientist 07 October 2006) quotes more confabulation studies.
So what are the implications of these findings? They add support to the NLP idea that "why?" is an unproductive question in therapy or coaching; not only are the responses likely to be excuses and justifications, but they probably won't even be an accurate representation of the person's real beliefs and decision-making processes.
Also, they suggest that asking "why?" in usability tests will be a waste of time. The same might apply in other types of research like focus groups as well.
What can you do to increase your self-awareness by becoming more aware of when you are confabulating? Reflect, meditate, get other people to explore your reasons through pertinent questioning (as can happen in coaching or an action learning set), practise self-hypnosis (with the intention of listening to your unconscious mind as well as merely giving it suggestions) or keep a learning log or a journal - if the evidence of the beliefs you used to hold is there in black and white, it will be available to your conscious mind to learn from.
It's worth doing more to get to know yourself. The great hypnotherapist Milton Erickson used to say that the reason people had problems was because they were out of rapport with their unconscious minds.
No me extraña que te impresionara el aforismo. Sin embargo, tienes razón, cuando le das la segunda vuelta comprendes que es así, que seguramente en eso, en hacer ese transito, consiste la sabiduría. Tal vez un mundo de anclajes blandos sea más vivible. A lo mejor, ese camino ha sido más fácil para los que, desde siempre, hemos tenido más dudas que certezas.
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