As more and more distance is placed between the opposing 'sides' of politics, and more and more desperate and dangerous things are said by candidates who have entered their 'shock-jock; promotional mentality' candidacy, we must now be subjected to a whole year too early: our nation is suffering.
Not too long ago I was programming a radio station in Charleston, South Carolina. The afternoon guy I hired (who turned out to be a Canadian ‘Alan Freed’: not the first, not the best, not the worst, the one who burst the most) and I would spend hours talking about this topic. No, not during work because that would have set the wrong example, but rather outside of the office.
John Majhor and I disagreed on probably every social issue of our time and we would laugh at the divide, as we also shared an exact same philosophy of programming a radio station, as it was, a work related topic and therefore more important than our personal ideas.
John took his job very seriously for a guy who could crack you up or mentally confuse you in a heart-beat’s moment, for no apparent reason, without provocation (very Gregory House like) and quite aggravating.
Nevertheless, most times he was right. That is the part that really makes me admire the man. John’s gone now, but his logical concept of reality reminded me of another person who had a phenomenal concept of reality and likewise didn’t have the opposing restraint to make those comments less threatening or outright not called for.
A few years ago during the last run for the Presidency, Carol Moseley Braun stood at a podium in a televised debate and proclaimed that we should just all get along.
Wow. What a statement. John Lennon-like.
But you know, after a long bout of ridicule it just sort of dawned on me that John was right, once again. The meaning of a thing is far deeper than the words used to convey it, and that is far deeper than the other’s words.
There is a thing that causes that to happen and each time John would respond with ‘yoohoo’ I knew the point was understood. I first learned how better to explain it that way. Not the best, not the worst, just an average significant step forward. John taught me in how he responded and in how his perspective was so similar that its focus would help shed light on the right topic or answer, no matter how that came out.
Carol Moseley Braun was right. We should all just get along. That would be the best outcome of anything man did, if it were possible. Utopia it would be.
My argument was always that utopia is the goal but unless you take it one step at a time, the goal will appear quite absurd. It is why those raised in a religious family most always hold the same belief into adulthood: the same learned lessons, the same indoctrinated lie.
It is also why George W. Bush was elected President the first time.
The deeper meaning was not what the words said, it was what the words meant. John and I talked about how people think and I learned from his skepticism and benefitted from his advice.
That fact that a candidate for the Presidency would make the unrestrained use of such a deeper meaning statement shows two things: a brilliant mind and a loose cannon. They sort of come hand in hand. The smarter you are, the more stubborn you are, and the more harder to teach a complete reversal of the accepted image.
I know, as the attempt is worthy of the outcome.
The far left and the far right are equally guilty of risking some form of cultural disaster. The political sides in America are pushing each other apart. All of the division based upon the relativity of each individual to his or her point of perception, means of perception of, length of perception, can result in an outcome that would change the country for a very long time as a good deal of that perception is being controlled by one side and it does not take a genius to connect similar things and do what is most repeated.
Our nation, as divided as it is, needs to realize why it is divided, and not just the ’cause you are different’ reason used by every organization ever created by man.
The reason we have such a divide as based in perception, is that our brains, as we are born with them, give us the means to think and the withal to decide and we do those things in a process.
That process starts at how you think, by what means do you think, and in what fashion, is what you think, able to be acted upon?
One has to identify what kind of thinker one is, and therefore tell how one thinks in order to realize how to overcome the other ‘side’, or defeat the enemy; or perhaps in uniting the ‘sides’ and turning the other cheek to the enemy.
That is what a settlement agreement attempts to reach when trying to end a conflict. The only agreement that has any chance at remaining in force is the agreement that the Japanese call, ‘saving face’ which is the opposing side’s other cheek. Each side get thrown a bone and the agreement will last as long as the bone is worth it.
The side that shows its other cheek before the other, is called the loser. Hopefully liberals will understand that concept one day. I can say that as a conservative. I’m not in that club. I don’t dislike that club ‘much’ either. I despise what it has become. It is quite savable, though and once saved (and the ridding of the republican extreme bigot from that party) the fact itself could lead to unity and that would be a very good thing as well.
The further apart the ‘sides’ are, the less chance such an agreement of minds can be reached. And any form of unity as a nation once again would have to wait until evolution weeded out the wrong and that would include the eventual conqueror of America. The path this country is on can lead to no other ‘utopia-ish’ final outcome.
And it is all to blame on how: how people can be people and never be able to be a people. It is in how we think and… yes, there are different kinds of thinkers.
It accounts for the different kinds of logic method applied to reasoning, opinions, beliefs, creativity and more.
Think dimensions for a moment.
That is something any kind of thinker can comprehend without concern.
Each type of thinking is partially based in dimension: depth, width, height, just as seeing is better with depth (three dimensional movies) width (the movie sized screen) and height (covered by that screen as well)
When I ask someone what kind of thinker they are I have always given the two primary options as a multiple choice answer.
Most people who have a response (others just sort of stare for a moment and return to the previous topic as if that unrecognized new thing didn’t exist at all, and sometimes those people do it in writing as well), are subtle in not being aware that they had a response at all.
Of the responses I have acquired, most are in gray areas between the two methods and I eventually surmised that it was quite logical then, that none of those persons understood what I had asked, or the reason for the knowledge.
It is that pesky dimension thing.
Aural thinkers who hear themselves talk inside their heads oft’ times are able to ‘conjure up’, or ‘imagine’ an image.
The image they ‘see’ is not actually ‘see’d, sawed, sown,’ but more perceived.
Some aural thinkers though, are able to ‘see’ more than just the perception. They can approach the visual thinker’s dimensions and think in words but, be able to think in images as well, some to a great degree.
I envy those people, especially the ones who can use the dimensional concepts to form new and creative things from the missing parts of the image: us mortals of the world can only dream of and are the first to ridicule when it is presented to them.
We call those people geniuses.
But I digress.
Visual thinkers who ‘see’ images in their heads, even for the simple process of watching the words form when speaking, finding oneself caught in that focus, then fighting to simply say things, instead of feel as if someone is scripting what is said, the ‘sound’ is actually ‘heard, ‘felt’, surprised’, but more perceived.
The sound they hear can be construed as normal to them (therefore ‘are you a visual thinker’ falls on deaf ears)or it can be perceived to be a different creature in there as well, or become a different ‘personality’ or even an alter ego, a ‘devil’ or an ‘angel’. Some though, are able to ‘hear’ more than just the perception.
They ‘see’ that the reality they think is real, is actually the two main senses, one having won the right to control the body, the other having won the privilege of watching it all from a distance. How far that distance is results in how depressing it all is.
What kind of thinker you are results in a great majority of the mental conditions and ‘illnesses’ the professions have tried to hoard for themselves and their theories, each created in inductive logic.
So the next time you are asked what kind of thinker you are, or the next time you ask someone what kind of thinker they are (probably because that sense that is in control, has determined the whole topic to be a large dark spot over a normally quite enjoyable image of ‘reality’.
When that time comes: then, you can know that you know by the results of the question. And since all humans have brains, you could ask anyone of them for the answer. If the result matches what your perception of that person is (it would be a good idea to know the person fairly well, first) you will know that you know.
You will know that you know that the guy was right, or you will know that you know that the guy was wrong. Either way you will know that you know. The only form of that knowledge you can know, that you know, that you know, is the one created from knowledge: not prejudice, opinion, belief or on account it is the cool thing to hate all new knowledge.
When you know, that you know, that you know, you will then be either aware of that knowledge, or in clinical denial. To know, that you know, that you know there is something totally wrong with what you thought you knew; it can be rather devistating and…
It can finally answer the simple question, ‘why can’t we all just get along?’ with an even more simple answer: cause different people think different ways and when they join up in groups, we call them countries, cultures, nations, and even gangs, clubs and associations.
My wife, Suesie Kent-Hempfling has always been a southern lady. She is so smart though, that the ending of a story she has perceived from the meaning of the story she has understood: results in a suggestion before it is due.
When people do that, like John Majhor, my wife and Carol Moseley Braun the outcome is taken as wrong. It isn’t wrong. It is right, from a different perspective. It is just at the wrong time in the story as they are well past the potential consequences of that story when they offer the suggestion. It could apply to the moment or to the end goal of the journey or the consequence of the action. Wherever it comes from it is related to the topic but such a throw to catch the focus that it stops the entire train of thought of the story which then runs the risk of becoming the perception unless it is returned to the point.
Suesie just had one of those moments when we were outside thinking this through. She essentially said that the article should allow the reader to save face as well, if it were to ever have a chance at being understood. She did that by suggesting I point out I am a conservative republican and my admiration for the real intellect of Carol Moseley Braun should not be hidden and I should acknowledge that admiration, regardless of the resulting offense paid to the bigots. fter all, I have done it before in supporting a minority’s opportunity to advance and that was a good example of the potential for unity.
So why can’t we all just get along, again? We are all bigots together. Some of us are just more than others. Some of us are less than the rest. To “come together, right now” is looking more mandatory every day.
We can do that by understanding how it happens and perhaps we can keep the union in unity and reach for peace together, or at least allow the next generation that opportunity by not destroying it by becoming the loser.
Abraham Lincoln uttered my wife’s favorite quote: “Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.”
Knowing how you think is a good start to learning why you think what you think.
And therefore, how to overcome the divide.