Exploring Open-Mindedness and its significance

Exploring Open-Mindedness and its significance

“It does take great maturity to understand that the opinion we are arguing for is merely the hypothesis we favor, necessarily imperfect, probably transitory, which only very limited minds can declare to be a certainty or a truth.” ― Milan Kundera, Encounter

Our perception of things in our daily life is largely affected by the environment we live in and interact with. These perceptions turn into beliefs, ideas, culture, and mentality, which keeps getting stronger and stronger daily. When we meet people who have never been a part of our environment and have their own set of beliefs, ideas, and mentality, we try to push our sense of perception onto them. To put it in a more clear manner we try to see them through the window of our perception and sometimes our beliefs become deciding factors in the assessment of people. For eg. let's assume that you have seen and eaten only apples throughout your life and at some point in life you happen to meet a person who has eaten only mangoes. At first glance, that person will feel alien to you what we call 'cultural shock' in millennial's terms. Soon on the interaction, you'll try to tell him how much you love the apples and he should try it too and want him to like the apples because that'll provide you validation and makes your love for apples stronger. But what if that person says he likes mangoes more?

Now keep on with the same image just replace the apple in your imagination with your belief, ideas and the mangoes are that person's own beliefs, ideas. So now let's move forward as that person saying he likes his mangoes more which means he likes his beliefs over yours. Now you as a person whose entire perception has been derived from the environment around himself will feel his reality is being hindered. You only tend to speak YOUR reality, life only showed you apples, so that is all you can perceive and that is all you know.

What will happen if someone didn't like your apples? What if that person said mangoes are better? Now your reality is hindered, it is questioned. You believed that everyone must like apples as you do, but this person says otherwise. Now there is one of the two ways you can respond to this question, either by ignorance or by curiosity

Ignorance

You can ignore that person’s view and disregard him by believing that he must be lying or he is retarded, you can even label that person as a liar or an idiot, to defend your beliefs, and keep believing that you are right and there is no existence of alternate views and proceed to live within your own limited world.

Curiosity

Or you can become curious, willing to explore, and alter your beliefs with better ones, but this response will require you to open up and question your own reality because, without being open to the possibility of being wrong, you won't really want to explore more.

If you believe that, “Your reality” is absolute, then you can go back and live with your apples by labeling other fruits as bitter.

There is actually so much to know about! Mangoes, berries, grapes, oranges, and much more, everything that exists beyond your confined boundary.

There Is So Much More To Explore There are ‘n’ number of cultures, ideologies, beliefs, mentalities, and unique perceptions in the world, which you haven’t discovered yet.

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness. ― Mark Twain

The world is rich in varieties, so much to learn and to experience!

Just like you, there are so many different people who have only seen a single fruit all their life, berry-only, orange-only, banana-only, mango-only, such environments exist, yet they are no different from you in terms of the context of mentality, which their environment has formed up. Everyone seems to be in a race to win, to impact, and to spread their ideologies, beliefs, perceptions, etc.

Similarly, everyone advises, shares, and propagates their beliefs that they feel is true to them, but it cannot necessarily be true to you. Now you can savor the taste of apples, mangoes, oranges, and all the other fruits you like at the same time, because… why not? You don't have to live with a single choice… Right?

julia-zolotova-M_xIaxQE3Ms-unsplash.jpg The Type of Understanding We Have To Cultivate Stop for some time and calmly look at the people around you, aren’t they doing what they feel is right? Aren’t they doing what they feel they should be doing?

Everyone makes choices that best suit them, regardless of it being right or wrong to you… If everything is happening at its best-chosen path… Then why do we feel uncomfortable with certain kinds of stuff that aren’t aligned with our definitions? For Example,

If you define in your mind that, “Everyone should like apples, because I feel it has the best taste” and then there will be people who will say “I like mangoes more than apples” and then, another person says “I like oranges more than apples”

The question is… what is the actual problem here? is it your definition of best fruit? or the people who like other fruits are at fault?

Well, clearly, your definition of the best fruit is wrong here, because if it was the absolute truth, people wouldn’t have liked other fruits right?

There isn’t a correct definition of the best fruit, we all just make it up based on our subjective experiences…Isn’t it selfish to think that our definition of something is the right definition for all? Is this not a mentality of a cruel dictator who sees the world only through his lens and decides what is right or wrong based on his personal interest?

And here again, if we replace the word of mentioned fruits with our culture, belief, perception, mentality, etc… in the example above, will the meaning change?

If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between 'for' and 'against' is the mind's worst disease ― Jianzhi Sengcan

Your depth of understanding and reasoning will liberate you from the anguish and agony you feel within, towards others.

If you don't know where your fruit is coming from, you will always be skeptical if it is safe or dangerous to consume, but if you know its source…Then you will be content with the decision you make, whether to consume it or not. Try to know the source of beliefs of other people.

There is no need for hostility in understanding and reasoning. Understanding and reasoning with others will dissolve the agony you feel within, you will feel empathy, and compassion towards them, you won’t treat them as hostile.