Attempting to Define an "Open Mind"

These thoughts stem from this post and it's reactions, which wasn't intended to be about whether religions oppose each other or not, it was about whether it is okay or not to have an open mind towards them.

I know that people say it's okay to have an open mind towards other religions and when reading other religious canons, but I don't believe most of them mean it. (This idea is new to me lately, that people are capable of saying things and thinking they mean them when they don't, but anyway...) It's politically correct, or religiously correct, to believe it good to have an open mind towards things other people hold to be true and dear to them, but I think that's more because the positive connotation we associate with having an "open mind" and less about what it really means, or I guess I have to say 'what it really means to me'.

I think all too often people, like me, venture into other religious ideas and texts and willingly engage in conversations with those we think differently from only after our mind is already made up, tipping our toes in the foreign water out of curiosity, out of a desire to be deemed as less ignorant. I don't think that's being open minded.

I think that when we first believe that the Bible is exclusively divine, we then sacrifice the ability to read other texts with an open mind. Listening to ideas from other religions and agreeing or disagreeing with them based on whether they agree with the Bible or not is not having an open mind.

To approach something with an open mind, we have to be willing to earnestly give every idea a fighting chance, whether it agrees with what we already believe or not. In order to approach things with an open mind our ideals must be fluid, with plenty of room for those thoughts not yet included, and the openness to discard of the thoughts already present for better ones, or different ones, or to discard just for discarding's sake, without feeling the need to replace them with new.

That said, I think most people don't have an open mind towards things, and that's alright with me.

Mountains

From Robert Pirsig-

Mountains should be climbed with as little effort as possible and without desire. The reality of your own nature should determine the speed. If you become restless, speed up. If you become winded, slow down. You climb the mountain in an equilibrium between restlessness and exhaustion. Then, when you're no longer thinking ahead, each footstep isn't just a means to an end but a unique event in itself. This leaf has jagged edges. This rock looks loose. From this place the snow is less visible, though even closer. These are things you should notice anyway. To live only for some future goal is shallow. It's the sides of the mountain which sustain life, not the top. Here's where things grow.

Along the trail of the Routeburn Track last February

A Chautauqua of Sorts

So I was up in Utah with a couple of Christian buddies a few weeks ago. I woke up and started doing the breakfast thing, incidentally leaving my current reading endeavor face up on my sleeping bag as the other guys began stirring around inside the tent. It's dull green cover reads in simple white capital letters, "Zen and the Art of Mortorcycle Maintenance."

Out on the trail that day the guys joked with me a bit about being Buddhist, which I didn't mind knowing it was all in fun. But it did lead me to ask them, as well as myself, "What is it to be Zen and what's so bad about it?" I was surprised to hear that they didn't have much of an idea, and neither do I some 270 pages into the book. But then again I don't think the author would claim to have a firm understanding or dare give a definition of it either.



I have been reading through this book with an open and earnest mind, doing my best to give every train of thought of Robert M. Pirsig a sufficient amount of dwelling time, sifting through his ideas and information, and grasping onto that which I believe to be of value and worth and allowing it then to tweak my perspective towards the things.

So why is it sometimes looked down upon to have an open mind towards those things we are unfamiliar with?

And why do we look at those things that aren't deemed to align with the Christian religion as therefore against it?

Blabber

I was distracted by a non-sense article that was supposed to let me know if one of my slumping fantasy baseball players was going to turn things around or not, and a few clicked links later I came across this page.

Cognitive Decline Begins Around Age 27

I was interested first because I remember my friend Gregg telling me that once you hit 27, you really start feeling like an old man. What really caught my attention was the subtitle for the article that says:

The Peak of the Brain is at 22 Years of Age

So this means with this past birthday, you all better be willing to pay very close attention to what I have to say. If you're 22 like me, I'll respect you and listen to your opinions and ideas as well, if your a measly couple of years either way, I'm sorry, you just can't think on the same level as some of us, so try to keep up.

But let me humble myself a little and say that I don't understand what happens between 22 and 27. If 22 is the peak of the brain, you would think that by the definition of the word peak there'd be an incline leading up to 22 and a decline directly after. Which leads me to think that the cognitive decline really starts at 23, not 27. Maybe there's a 5 year plateau, but that would mean 22 isn't the peak, just the beginning of the plateau. But who knows, I didn't even read the article, I just saw the title and subtitle and got excited.