How do Smart people create so much STUPID??

by Terry 20 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Terry

  Looking back on my life I just have to wonder: WHAT WAS I THINKING?!

  How did I get involved with a religious cult in the first place???

  I am embarassed, frankly!

  But, that doesn't get me anywhere.

  I am also a bit scared: what if I make a similar error again!

  Well, I did! I got married 4 times and divorced 4 times!! That's alot like joining a cult!

  WHAT WAS i THINKING?????

  More embarassment.

  Does my brain work at all?

  I'd like discuss something with you.

  I'm going to start with the premise that YOU are in some ways just like me.

  No, I don't mean you got married 4 times. I mean no matter how intelligent you are, you have made some stupid mistakes.

  How do smart people create so much STUPID???

  I think a fair amount of the reason is that we don't use ALL of our skills for particular problems. We use only one at a time!

  You might say we wear one hat when being an employee, one hat when being a friend, we wear one hat with our marriage mate, we wear a

  different hat with our kids, etc. We act a little differently depending on where we are and who were are dealing with. Our personality slightly shifts, our way of speaking adjusts, our manners and tone alter slightly.

  I know I use to act differently at the Kingdom Hall than I did privately.

  I was different talking to a householder out in Field Service than I was with friends.

  I spoke to my wife differently than to an employer. WE ALL DO THIS. We narrow ourselves. We limit our skill set!

  By using this MODALITY we rob ourselves of our FULL PERSONALITY and drop down to smaller tools when tackling problems with them.

  We set ourselves up to fail when problems arise.

  Instead of wearing just one hat (modality) what if we kept changing hats when engaged in problem solving?

  You know the old routine of GOOD COP/BAD COP? You know how in westerns the hero wears the WHITE hat and the villain the BLACK hat?

  Each 'Thinking Hat' is a different thinking style.

  • White Hat:
    With this thinking hat you focus on the data available. Look at the information you have, and see what you can learn from it. Look for gaps in your knowledge, and either try to fill them or take account of them.
  • This is where you analyze past trends, and try to extrapolate from historical data.
  • Red Hat:
    'Wearing' the red hat, you look at problems using intuition, gut reaction, and emotion. Also try to think how other people will react emotionally. Try to understand the responses of people who do not fully know your reasoning.
  • Black Hat:
    Using black hat thinking, look at all the bad points of the decision. Look at it cautiously and defensively. Try to see why it might not work. This is important because it highlights the weak points in a plan. It allows you to eliminate them, alter them, or prepare contingency plans to counter them.
  • Black Hat thinking helps to make your plans 'tougher' and more resilient. It can also help you to spot fatal flaws and risks before you embark on a course of action. Black Hat thinking is one of the real benefits of this technique, as many successful people get so used to thinking positively that often they cannot see problems in advance. This leaves them under-prepared for difficulties.
  • Yellow Hat:
    The yellow hat helps you to think positively. It is the optimistic viewpoint that helps you to see all the benefits of the decision and the value in it. Yellow Hat thinking helps you to keep going when everything looks gloomy and difficult.
  • Green Hat:
    The Green Hat stands for creativity. This is where you can develop creative solutions to a problem. It is a freewheeling way of thinking, in which there is little criticism of ideas. A whole range of creativity tools can help you here.
  • Blue Hat:
    The Blue Hat stands for process control. This is the hat worn by people chairing meetings. When running into difficulties because ideas are running dry, they may direct activity into Green Hat thinking. When contingency plans are needed, they will ask for Black Hat thinking, etc.

  The above 6 Hats method was developed by business professionals to use in business decisions and in creating more success. But, I think it has practical everyday uses too.

  For example: When we dicuss Topics on JW-Wit Net do we immediately assume a MODAL identity or are we a WHOLE person?

  Do we lapse into Liberals vs Conservatives? Evangelicals vs Atheists? I think we DO, because a lot of the topics are framed as stark dichotomies!

  Topc Headings reflect MODALITY in thinking. With MODAL thinking comes modal (limited) thinking skills and problem solving!

  If we narrow our skill set how can we ever GROW BEYOND where we are now?

  Stated another way: if you aren't willing to CHANGE and GROW it means you are ALREADY PERFECT.

  ARE YOU? I certainly know I'm not. But, I'm working to expand my skills in thinking a problem solving.

  I'll bet you don't want to remain the same person you are now forever.

  I certainly never want to be that teenager who accepted Jehovah's Witnesses as the only true religion!

  I don't want to marry again!

  Insanity is doing the same thing the same way and expecting different results!!
• 

  WontLeave

  This is a process known as "garbage in, garbage out". JWs fill their minds with garbage and forbid anything else from diluting this garbage. "For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks." - Mat 12:34 If there is nothing in you except for garbage, nothing else can come out.

  Born-ins probably have it the worst, since thought, research, doubt, and everything outside the Organization tm have been so misrepresented and demonized that even teens and young adults avoid them out of mindless horror. If your parents are "good Witnesses" the whole time you're growing up, you really don't know anything else. It might take decades for the wall of unrealities that has been built in your mind since birth to be penetrated by facts.

  Then, the fanatics who have gone from the radical cult mentality to the radical anti-cult mentality only serve to delay the process as their seething venom can be alienating. They appear to demonstrate all the facets the Apostates tm of Watchtower literature are described to possess. Your parents warn you the World tm is a terrible place where nobody loves anyone and everybody is out to hurt you. And they should know, because they were in it.

  It's no wonder it can take years or decades to undo the brainwashing and thought control perpetrated by such a non-stop torrent of mental, emotional, and spiritual garbage. Many "strongly entrenched things" (2Cor 10:4) need to be overturned and that can be a long and arduous process. It can take several years for a born-in to even realize a desire or need to begin the process. Many never do and they are the glazed-eyed willful ignoramuses we have all met and can't bear to talk to.
• 

  Satanus

  True. I was sucked in a couple of times, after i left the wt. Could it happen again to me? Yup. I find, though, that using a meditational trick, i'm less likely to go into an off center thought avenue. What i mean, is that i shut off thoughts that i get from other people, where i feel pulled into doing something based on outside influences. I tend to stay centered most of the time. Detached.

  It's a refusal to identify w my mind and the thoughts it produces. Instead of seeing the mind as a master, see it as a tool. It's not a good master, imo, at least, not my mind.

  Now, a thought on you terry. What i see as a common factor in all that you described about yourself, and in the long trained thoughts in your posts, is no impulse control. I'm not saying it's bad, or good. Don't know what a person could do about it, except the same thing that i do, shut off the mind, periodically. It's like reseting a computer back to default, when it starts looping, or is getting ready to go down a long ride.

  S
• 

  lovelylil

  when people are going through a tough time in life, they are very vunerable to the cults like the WT. For me, I was recently married, had a young child and my hubby was in the Navy. He was transferred to a new location very far away from my family and friends. I had lived in Brooklyn NY all my life and had my friends since childhood. Also was very close to my extened Italian catholic family.

  I did not know how to drive at the time, I always took a bus or train in NY and had no where to park a car anyway. And just to get off the Navy base we lived on I had to walk about 2 miles each way. So I was very isolated. Lots of the other moms knew each other for years. I was the newbie and was very, very lonely. I missed my mother terribly and cried all the time.

  I was ripe for the picking of the jws who offered me companionship, a new family, etc. When we are vunerable, we are not thinking straight, we let our guards down and we are in a sense "defeated" in spirit. This makes us very easy targets for manipulation. Peace, Lilly
• 

  thetrueone

  I think marriage and religion can be compared together easily since most people who venture into either have beginning

  perceptions of good things mostly built upon through emotional trust and convenience. As these relationships develop and evolve is when

  the realization that there are many inner complicated problems pertaining to the relationship as a whole, some so great

  that only a complete separation is pursued to dissolve the relationship. ( excommunication , divorce )
• 

  HintOfLime

  If you think smart people make bad decisions, you should see what the stupid people are doing.

  - Lime
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  LV101

  i can relate. the things we get involved with in adult life is because of yesterday (everything is out of fear and a self-focus, i think) to protect ourselves and survive/build a better life which is great but we end up strangling ourself. the JWs paint such a pretty life for one now and all the frosting of cute critters later and seeing a significant, dead, loved, one again that we lost in our early life. we are so vulnerable and it's scary for me to become involved with another religion. i feel like such a fool and when presented w/the nonsense at young age after college wanted nothing to do with it but later chalked it up to my being selfish, and caved in. it's so easy to become tired/exhausted with the challenges of life and working hard.
• 

  cyberjesus

  we are both smart and stupid.. it all depends what part of your brain is taking the decisions. When your outer cortex is involved you take smart decisions, when the inner part of the brain is involved you take more primitive, emotional decisions.

  You got married 4 times. the inner part took over, it released a drug-like feeling in your brain and your love-intoxicated brain took over.

  you joind a cult because you were inexperienced, sometimes we know things are wrong but we do them anyway expecting that a "miracle" would happen and a good outcome would result... We lie to ourselves, we know it but like the dream....
• 

  Nickolas

  I equate smart with maturity and experience. The more mature you are, the fewer stupid mistakes you make. When I was 12 I thought 8 was immature and more prone to do stupid things and I was, of course, right. The only thing is I also thought my parents were stupid in which case I was, of course, wrong. The older you get, the more experienced you become and the less stupid you are. Yeah, I know there are exceptions but those people are just extraordinarily stupid. To quote Mark Twain:

  "When I was 18, I left home knowing my Father was a stupid man who knew nothing of the world; then when I returned at age 21 and sat down and talked with my Father, I was amazed at how much he had learned in three years..." Then there's experience. Some people have to repeat grade 5 two or even three times before they have the requisite experience to advance. You could uncharitably call such children stupid but unless they've got a legitimate learning disorder or domestic problems your comment might not be too far off the mark. I think this circumstance is genuinely rare. I have met very, very few truly stupid people.

  So what's left are the cards you're dealt. You, my friend, have been dealt some really shitty hands. Nothing to do with your gray matter. Everything to do with probability theory.
• 

  Terry

  Someone commented that I am "impulsive" and I immediately thought to myself (impulsively:) "that isn't me!"

  Then, later, yesterday I had problems starting my car and discovered I needed a new battery.

  I ended up buying the most expensive and powerful battery Sears sells; the one with the 100 month guarantee!

  Immediately afterward I stopped......HEY That was pretty impulsive!

  You see, we can't really see ourselves. We are up too close!

  Thanks for the insight!

  It probably wasn't "stupid" to buy a $200 battery with a 100 month warranty.

  But--was it prudent financially? Was it actually necessary?

  You see, I bypassed THOSE considerations because, as mentioned, it turns out I make decisions impulsively.

  From now on I have promised to stop and consider things at least twice as long before making a determination. Further,

  I will promise to list reasons both FOR and AGAINST.

  Now that is progress!