FILTER OF IRRATIONALITY

All the stuff we think about is filtered through our perceptions and it quite often may have nothing to do with being rational. Take my last rant on turn based games verses real time click fest games. (See I can’t even describe the rant without my prejudices showing through). Some people would say that I’m irrationally biased against the newer style of games because of my enjoyment of the old games. You know what? They might be right – or at least it may be part of why I like turn based games better.

I talked with a friend the other day who illustrated the point perfectly. This friend who is facing a minor medial procedure told me about her nervousness with needles because of an experience she had as a child in a doctors office. The experience was a once in a life time type happening but because it did happen to her anytime that a situation in life comes up that resembles that childhood experience her filters interpret it as scary.

We all have filters. If we don’t accept that and learn what they are we are doomed to be ruled by our own filters.

I have a filter that I secretly fear that everyone I care about will leave me. It’s an irrational fear. It’s based on a real experience from my childhood when my mother passed away after a bout with cancer. It is silly to think that all my friends and loved ones will also just go away but the hidden three year old in my mind IS irrational and to him that irrational fear is no less real.

I’m a grown up now. (OK I know people who would disagree with that.) (OK some more, even sometimes I would disagree with that because I like being silly and childish sometimes.) But the point is that I’m capable of re-filtering my filters by consciously choosing to acknowledge them and then deal with them in the way that a child never could. I can rationally examine my relationships and conclude that people aren’t going to just abandon me and even if people do choose to move on it’s not my fault since everyone gets to make their own choices for themselves.

I think that is the only way to counter the way our brains will automatically perceive the world. We must consciously accept our biases and then choose to counter them or not.