Incongruities

I'm struck, with an almost blunt force trauma impact, by the wildly inconsistent thinking apparent in a single day or week or month of reported current events.  True, there is always going to be a gap between our potential and actual ability to grasp and really hold onto the truth (and to reality). But evidence of mental carelessness, superficiality and plain old sloppiness sure mounts up fast these days!  


One of the more astonishing things I witness is backpeddling or running-in-place by myself, another or the  supposed movers and shakers out there. Admittedly, speeding backwards is a tricky (and futile) way to workout, and highly counterproductive: it burns rubber but nothing else.  Everyone knows you cannot reduce an ounce of body fat by simply reading the labels, or stay sober by just thinking about it, or win the lotto without spending a buck.


So what can be done to realize our potential as consistent, logical human beings, actually capable of figuring out what adds up, or even what goes into the plus and minus columns?  Clearly, it's not always reducible to a bunch of numbers.  But it isn't necessarily as complex or incomprehensible as an algorithm. (I will never understand algorithms.) The core  solution may be abandoning our preconceptions, our robot-like mental processes, our shyness or habitual aversion to taking a new look or looking from a new perspective.  


Every genius philosopher, theologian, artist or great leader faces down their fear of being wrong sometimes.  Their courageous inventiveness benefits us all, and because they dare to ask hard questions and explore the edges of what they and we already grasp, they really do open up new, wonderful frontiers.  In the field of ethics, we are indebted to those who grapple with previously unimaginable scientific or medical realities instead of sticking their heads in the sand and smothering themselves. In theology, the wisely courageous application of timeless spiritual values to real-time lives reinvigorates belief.  In art, creativity stuns us and beauty pitches us beyond the banal and common pursuits that swallow up our  narcissistic, self-involved, consumer-driven existences.


Nevertheless, it is okay to shrink from the risks and  incongruities that threaten or puzzle us as long as we remember that these challenges can be catalysts. We really must act to avert traumatic tunnel-vision and, paradoxically, unite to minimize the idiocies of mob mentalities, secular or "religious." Whatever we can legitimately do to emasculate those Good Old Boy's Clubs or broaden the vision of Single Issue extremists (on the Left and the Right) would certainly be stepping towards a place where we can all get along in one world - effectively repudiating the backbreaking craziness paralyzing and decimating our famous muscle beach.