Reply #14: the vitriol of naysayers [View All]

[NJCher]

Welcome, mtnleo! We're so happy to have you with us at this forum and I, too, am thankful to the person who gave you the star. Hey, I'm a Leo, too. And a cat lover. :)

Cleita, that was an interesting post. I didn't know that.

Naysayers. I never get into it with them. There is something odd about them. I think it's a psychological hangup. They have so much invested in their viewpoint and they go way over the top. They seem to be extraordinarily rigid people.

I recall a story a teacher once told in class. It was when I was in middle school. The teacher told us a way to think about new ideas is to think of them as books. When we hear a new idea that we may not agree with (or even one we do agree with), we should put it on our imaginary bookshelf and just leave it there, like we would with a book.

Every now and then, something will come up and we can pull that book/idea off its shelf and look at it from a new angle. The teacher urged us to keep the book on the shelf, consulting it throughout our lifetimes. Some books, it was said, would be there for a lifetime and there would never be any conclusion about them. Nothing wrong with that.

This is what bothers me about naysayers. They don't seem to be able to "hold" an idea in the air, like what my teacher conceptualized metaphorically with the bookshelf. It's like they think a decision must be made about an idea right then and there. I buy into it or I don't buy into it.

What's wrong with holding an idea or concept in suspension and trying it on for size, playing with it?

They are unable to do that.




Cher