Rational Thoughts Amid Ensuing Chaos

The article below builds awareness for a few purposes: To identify what and how our thinking moves us, where our thoughts and feelings come from, and how can we slow down long enough to register a choice in the next behavior we choose.

As thorough as one can be, until every person decided to step up and take ownership of their thinking and feeling, we will continue to see groups of people following mob mentality, individuals who feel empowered by group energy, and individuals who seek to make a singular statement inciting pain on hundreds, if not thousands who hear of their hideous attacks on human kind. Join me as I tease out some of the thoughts on the subject of choices.

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What is the purpose of discussion if one cannot speak rationally?

No matter how factual and focused on intellectual disclosure, your words will fall on deaf ears of those who bring to the discussion emotionally incited anger and rage. Intellectual discussions cannot be found among those who refuse to calm the inner turmoil long enough to listen with a calm, cool mindset.

Anyone who operates out of rashness is not embodying the strength of character and perseverance needed in today’s emotionally charged world. The willingness to step down in a discussion because you don’t know all the facts and to willingly set aside prejudice because of uncertainty is powerful.

We’d like to think we are speaking out of intellect, with emotion tucked away nicely, and in its place we stand with regard for all humankind. Unfortunately, though we feel strongly about something to speak intellectually, we forget the intellectual side needed emotion to begin moving toward understanding. Emotionless mindsets are like someone who walks without caring about the impact of their words on others. In other words, they lack empathy.

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Maintain personal insight

You can strive to maintain control over your emotions by allowing yourself to feel enough to move toward what you believe while entertaining the thought of intellectual process. Enter in the facts, demonstrated over time, which will make or break your thought processes or statements. If you genuinely feel you are sharing from a place with no emotion, I recommend you to regard yourself with a little more empathy.

Our brains are geared to fling emotion into the picture. Whether we are excited about a goal being met or we have fears or anxiety about the current events in our world, emotion is on demand. It riles up the already emotionally-charged person while encouraging the weaker of the two.

We can get people up and moving toward a common cause if emotion is pulled into the forefront of the mind. What this means is the thinking or logical part of the brain shuts up when the emotion mind shows up. It’s almost like it says, “Man, this is too thick in here, I am going to go ponder something else while emotion handles the issue at hand.” and off to the other side of the brain, figuratively, sits the prefrontal cortex, waiting until emotion has had its say and reason has returned.

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The brain’s job

All of this is based on brain facts. You can pick up any book on the brain and emotion and you’ll get a different version of the same thing: different words to demonstrate the same dynamic taking place. Put several people in a room, and their brains light up where a common theme emerges, and you have a group cohesion forming.

The group mindset builds until outsiders are considered less than in the group’s sight.

The contagious mindset is rampant with the emerging group consensus.

Another thought producing quote is by Dr. Sapolsky, a biological sociologist. He states, in his book Behave, The Biology of Humans at their Best and their Worst:

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Emotion is contagious

Not only do we have emotional contagion with good things, we have them with negative things as well. We each carry an innate sense of what we deem right or wrong, and with that, we seek out confirmation bias to fulfill our thoughts.

For instance, anyone can google anything at any time and find a back up to their thought processes. It’s the wise person who weighs the thoughts without confusing fact with emotion.

The willingness to step down in a discussion because you don’t know all the facts and to willingly set aside prejudice because of uncertainty is powerful.

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Intellectual focus

Where does intellectual focus come from? What makes it matter so much? In tough moments of decision we have to be willing to make choices based on fact, even if we go against the main tide of opinion.

Individuals have an external and an internal dialogue system running often simultaneously creating doubt, confusion, and mistaken statements. What we believe internally may not show up in external conversations. When this takes place, people get confused. They don’t know exactly what they want, nor do they know how to ask for what they do not have.

Negative externally voiced individuals tend to drag internally focused people too and fro shifting paradigms. As we think about intellectual focus, keep in mind you do and say more often from experience than instantaneous wisdom. One of the most powerful quotes by a Navy SEAL encouraged me as I sought ways to express my thoughts, and who I wanted to associate with on a daily basis.

Each choice you make is based on past experiences. So, when you are around people who press their opinion as fact, you’ll have to be wise, and go with your gut. If not, you’ll feel overwhelmed, and end up saying what they want to hear, and ignoring your inner voice.

Thomas Sowell shared, “Many intellectuals are so preoccupied with the notion that their own special knowledge exceeds the average special knowledge of millions of other people that they overlook the often far more consequential fact that their mundane knowledge is not even one-tenth of the total mundane knowledge of those millions.

The importance of this thought is how often people believe they are smarter than they are, and infer others not so wise. The type of person who fits into the bracket of intelligentsia ends up alienating people who could and would build their knowledge base of experience, not from only an intellectual view point.

Another major point taken, is no matter what your intellectual level is, if you do not connect well with others, learn from those around you, and keep your intellectual supremacy at bay, you’ll alienate the very people you need to support, guide, educate, and embrace.

Often, I choose to eliminate those people from my life or keep them at arm’s length to remove any possible taint an attitude impresses upon myself or others around me. As we move forward, consider how varied mental states have created different areas in so many places in life.

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Confused Mentality

The bottom link in the chain of confusion and intellectual bias is the Us/Them mentality. We struggle with connection because the mind builds walls against anyone or anything which does not build our ‘perfect’ mindset. The political climate is rife with the Us/Them mindset. The dichotomy of division builds sides where unity will not stand nor last, except within the boundaries of each section.

The slow moving buildup of anger and resentment fuels the bonding of the two dichotomies of humanity. While there are more groups thus divided, the most prominent are conservative and liberals within the United States. Outside the U.S. I am sure there are even more divisions of people, creating even more chasms.

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My experience

Years ago, to stop the insanity of the liberal left or the far right within the religious organization I associated with, I choose to call myself a conservative-liberal. I saw both sides of the picture and wanted to stay balanced without getting emotional. I was chastised by people close to me.

However, some people respected me for staying balanced instead of becoming irrational when something didn’t go the way I perceived it when it came to religion or politics.

Today, I have a different mindset, and see myself independent: Willing to choose the best based on my value system. If it connects with others, so be it, if not, I have nothing to prove other than you have your choices to follow and I, mine.

Can we accept other’s views while maintaining our own? As I accept another person’s views it gives their voice a chance. I would hope to be accepted in return. Most often, if one person is strongly focused in their belief, they will not give me the same benefit of the doubt.

To remain open minded is my choice, and one I cannot enforce others to believe or carry.

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Perception’s deflected deception

Remember, perception is part of the process of living. Our experiences starting with birth form the vast, wide opinions we hold with high regard, and we seek out validation for our perception.

Emotion and thoughts may bombard us at every turn; it is our choice to calm the emotions so we think with intellect rather than intensity of feeling.

The brain’s legal defense leans in to locate rationale for opinions we hold. The moment we begin to think outside the box the brain sets to work to defend the thoughts. I find it intriguing however, to know people often do not even realize this is taking place.

They fight, argue, defend, and cut off people who believe differently. The power is in the emotion one brings to the table. And yet, we think we are intellectually strong without emotion.

I beg to differ.

The patterns of our thinking lead up to the choices we make, whether the majority align with the thoughts or not. Once we feel confirmed in our mindset, we build stronger, neural-cortical pathways to support our reasoning. This is why it is dangerous to have an imbalance of power in the higher governmental agencies, as well as in smaller organizations.

The more power someone holds, the more their egos grows.

The irony comes to play when we often fall into the category, we do so without even a consideration of the truth. Blindly accepting whatever is presented without a reflective research to validate or discredit the voices and ideas we hear sets us up for disappointment, disillusionment, and discouragement.

Daily we are attacked by our conscious, and daily we stuff the voice lower and deeper inside. While we do this instinctive act, we begin to build walls, where even if the ideas spark interest, we no longer listen. Our ego’s have built a wall strong and a fortress against hearing anything remotely rationally against our preconceived ideas and beliefs.

While a healthy, balanced ego helps us make choices and use rationality, an ego system out of whack reveals itself in daily exposures, statements, and attitudes.

If the rate of deflection could be reduced with enough time to process incoming data, without an emotional surge, one might be able to step back before they begin inciting others to follow blindly a thought pattern. Instead of rushing forward with a feeling of injustice, people can stop and gather insight to see where the reaction stems from and what is the purpose of a reaction.

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After the entirety of the words full of insight, hopefully you’ve come to a clearer picture of the impact our words and actions, internally directing choices. Each experience leads one to conclude siding with or against and idea. The bottom line? We have to recognize if we are leaning either direction to support an opinion rather than a fact.

Even when we don’t understand something, it’s more appropriate to stop, breathe, and then think. Emotion and thoughts may bombard us at every turn; it is our choice to calm the emotions so we think with intellect rather than intensity of feeling.

Whether you agree or disagree with the political climate in your arena, be willing to listen to others, not with the intent to reply but rather, with the intent to understand. The more you attempt an understanding the closer you become to those who disagree with you. Kindness does instill in us a gift, and listening helps build bridges rather than burning them with our words, actions, and attitudes.

~Just a thought by Pamela

Reference

Haidt, J. (2012). The righteous mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.

Sapolsky, R. (2017). Behave: The biology of humans at our best and worst. New York, NY: Penguin Books.

Shea, T. (2014). Unbreakable: A navy seal’s way of life. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company.

Sowell, T. (2011). Intellectuals and society. New York, NY: Basic Books: A Member of the Perseus Books Group.

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This post was previously published on Human Behavior: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.

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