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http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f &t 901
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James, it may not occur to you that where you are mentally with all this is
a sad, familiar problem.
At some point in your feeble attempts to understand this stuff, you came
across what you perceived as conflicting information. Perhaps it was
something as simple as looking at a picture called a phase diagram, and
elsewhere a textual claim that gaseous water can exist at that temperature
and pressure. You looked one way and saw the diagram, you looked the other
way and saw the text claim. “Something’s amiss,” you rightfully told
yourself. But this is where your mental station wagon veered off the little
country road and plunged into the bushes. Because a NORMAL person’s
response would be, “there must be something here I don’t understand.” And
after that point, a NORMAL person would entertain options to either dive in
deeper to learn where his misperception was, or to decide it wasn’t of
sufficient interest to spend the effort to learn it and instead to resign
himself to not understanding it well.
But, you see, Jim, the station wagon of your ego was already pretty
battered and rusted out from years of abuse and feeling inferior, and so it
was not acceptable for you to say, “I’m misunderstanding something.”
Instead, your mind started to tell itself self-protective lies, and as you
know, lies compound and escalate. The first lie was, “it must be the fault
of the explainers that I don’t get it. They must not be able to explain it
well.” This then became, “Of course they can’t explain it! A nonsensical
idea can’t be explained!” Which was then followed by a frantic search for
“anomalies” which proved the case that nobody understands a damn thing
about it, and it’s not just you that doesn’t get it. Which was then
followed by the whopper, “But they’re AFRAID to confess that they don’t
understand it, because they’ll lose face and reputation and earnings,”
which are the luxuries you’ve never enjoyed anyway. And this then quickly
escalated to the self-soothing insight: “But at least I alone am able to
see that there is a problem which no one else will admit is there! This not
only makes me the most honest one here, but also a true genius and a true
scientist at heart! And that means I have the smarts to figure out the
truth!”
At this point, the station wagon was through the brush line, and had
crossed a couple of creeks and cattle meadows, but the bumpy ride you
attributed to being the hard knocks of being a True Scientist and an
unappreciated one at that. It never crossed your mind, not since the first
lies passed through your lips, that you were completely off the road and
driving through a bog of your own choices.
I suggest you turn off your engine and start calling for a tow truck. When
dragged back to the road, it would be then a simple matter to say, “Ok,
there must be something here I don’t understand....”
But, Jim, do you have the balls to do that?
--
Odd Bodkin -- maker of fine toys, tools, tables