We know the importance of thinking clearly for achieving
success in our life and enjoying a happy life. All good and evil, all our joys and sufferings
are due to our thoughts as William Shakespeare said, “There is nothing either
good or bad but thinking makes it so.”
A person with clear thinking sees the world “as it is” and
knows the “real world” while a person lacking this ability sees “conceptual
world” based on his “concepts”. These concepts are not reality but like an
image or colored lenses which prevent us seeing the reality clearly. It is like seeing a white cloth with a green
color lenses. You do not see the white cloth but see “red cloth”.
When we see the world, we see it using our perception,
understanding, images which has become so deeply interwoven in our minds that
they have become our “commonsense” and we
do not even realize that we are making a mistake. If it is external lenses, we
can perhaps remove it to see clearly but the commonsense is so much ingrained
within our mind due to the conditioning of our minds since childhood that it is
very difficult to get rid of it. Einstein said rightly said, "Common sense
is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen."
The Reality of Distorted
Vision
Let us try to understand our inability to think clearly by
an example.
You are a CEO of a company and you are going to appoint a
person for your Sales Department in your office. The person who is being called
for the interview is named Mr Ram Sevak Pandey, from Bihar (India) with a
Bachelor of Science from Delhi University (India). We have yet to meet person
but we have already formed the image of the person based on the images we have
developed in our mind since our childhood. Let us analyze these images one by
one
1.
Name:
“Ram Sevak” is a name which is quite ancient (Hindi) meaning “Servant of (Lord)
Rama”. The name perhaps gives you a feeling of his rural/traditional back
ground.
2.
Surname:
“Pandey” is surname belonging to “Brahmin caste”, which is on the top of the
caste hierarchy. The image of the caste
is different in the mind of different people. For Brahmins, he may be one of
them while for lower caste people; he may be an exploiter of their people for
thousands of years. For some people, the caste is elite as represents
intellectual bent of mind while others may be indifferent to the caste.
3.
Religion:
The name indicate the religion of the person as “Hindu” and you may have a
typical image of people of Hindu religion like orthodox, idolater, corrupt, unprincipled,
flexible depending upon your experience of life or the experience of others/media.
Your image also depends on your own religion and the relationship of your
religion with Hindu religion.
4.
Country:
One who knows “India” has an image of the country which is based on the limited
information about the country based on the media reports or personal
experiences of friends. This image is different in every person. If you are
Indian, it may be positive and if you are from an Islamic country, it could be
a great negative.
5.
Region:
While those who are not familiar with the intricacy of India may pay no
attention to the region “Bihar”, but those who know the place have an image of
Bihar. It is different if you are a “Bihari” (Resident of Bihar) and different if
you are an outsider. It depends on your personal experience with a person of
Bihar origin.
6.
Qualification:
You may have an image of the students of B. Sc. And hence their suitability for
the present job. The image may be based on the observation of just one person
or purely on heresy and even on hypothesis based on your like/dislike of science
as a subject.
7.
University:
We have all images of the university based on the knowledge available to us.
For example, we may consider Harvard University graduate smarter than Delhi
University. It also depends on our image of the place Delhi and our experience
of the students of Delhi University.
The Distorted Image
We all have the tendency to judge the person based on our
images rather than judging the person who he or she is. In this case, we are
seeing the person from multiple images (Name)(Surname)(Religion)(Country)(Region)(Qualification)(University).
We are hardly able to see the real person.
The worst part is that we are not even aware that we are not
seeing the reality and judging the person based on our prejudices/images. So
even before we meet the person, we view the person from our images. Naturally,
this image is quite incorrect which we realize when the person appears for the
interview. He does not look, dress, speak or walk like what we imagined. Still
instead of changing our image, we often try to change the reality of the person
to fit into our image. So if we do not like the person based on our image and
consider him to be unsuitable for the job, we ask more difficult questions to
him as compared to one whom we have thought to be the right candidate.
There is an unconscious attempt to validate our preconceived
image of the person and prove that we were right in our perception. We are more
likely to ask difficult questions from the person whom we don’t like as the
candidate would fail to answer these questions and our image is validated. We “desire”
(unconsciously) to reject the person as we have already rejected him based on
his image.
Once in a while the candidate may turn out to be too smart
and we are forced to change our image. Yet the more he proves us wrong, the
higher we raise the bar till such time the person fails and we are proven right.
Seeing the Reality
It is not easy to break all the images we have gathered in
our life and see the reality as it is. Yet the very knowledge of the existence
of these images in our minds and its effect on “clear thinking” can help us in
correcting the defect. We must challenge the images in our mind by by gathering
more “facts” and by proper reasoning and logic. Only when we are free from all
images, we can develop the vision to see the reality and develop clear thinking.
No comments:
Post a Comment