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wmw999

The value of questioning yourself

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Most of life is messy and complicated. Some things used to be easy to judge, but times have changed — just consider medicine. Used to be there was maybe one thing to do for a disease, so it was cheap. Now the number and sophistication make doctoring much harder and much more expensive. Since its their own health, most people don’t want to reduce that to its simplest. Only when it’s someone else’s health. 

I’ve read a couple of things recently that really do a good job of showing what comes from questioning yourself: 

The Unlikely Disciple. A semester spent at America’s holiest university

the kid transferred from Brown to Liberty for a semester, to try to learn from the inside. You can see his thought processes maturing as the semester goes on. Nuance is your friend. 
The second is an article in this week’s NY Times magazine: 

Kamala Harris, Mass Incarceration, and Me

by a writer who’s also a convicted juvenile felon, and whose mother is the survivor of a rape.  You can turn off Java for the session if you want to look through the paywall, apparently.  Again, he’s becoming more comfortable with a world that isn’t (ahem) black and white. He knows he never wants his mother’s rapist to go free, and he knows that most of his friends from when he was in prison have moved way past the youthful offenders they once were. And he knows these two views are inconsistent. It also places Kamala Harris, and her vilification for having been a prosecutor, into this lens  

Wendy P.

 

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44 minutes ago, wmw999 said:

Most of life is messy and complicated. Some things used to be easy to judge, but times have changed — just consider medicine. Used to be there was maybe one thing to do for a disease, so it was cheap. Now the number and sophistication make doctoring much harder and much more expensive. Since its their own health, most people don’t want to reduce that to its simplest. Only when it’s someone else’s health. 

I’ve read a couple of things recently that really do a good job of showing what comes from questioning yourself: 

The Unlikely Disciple. A semester spent at America’s holiest university

the kid transferred from Brown to Liberty for a semester, to try to learn from the inside. You can see his thought processes maturing as the semester goes on. Nuance is your friend. 
The second is an article in this week’s NY Times magazine: 

Kamala Harris, Mass Incarceration, and Me

by a writer who’s also a convicted juvenile felon, and whose mother is the survivor of a rape.  You can turn off Java for the session if you want to look through the paywall, apparently.  Again, he’s becoming more comfortable with a world that isn’t (ahem) black and white. He knows he never wants his mother’s rapist to go free, and he knows that most of his friends from when he was in prison have moved way past the youthful offenders they once were. And he knows these two views are inconsistent. It also places Kamala Harris, and her vilification for having been a prosecutor, into this lens  

Wendy P.

 

No one is infallible but I don't think starting with questioning yourself is the best idea. Rather question what you believe until you have no other choice than to question yourself.

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I guess I conflated questioning myself with questioning my beliefs. Either way, to me it's powerful.

I'm quite comfortable with myself, and questioning my beliefs makes me stronger, not weaker. Just as questioning myself does. It tests me. I can't make a completely neutral test, so I just have to keep working the pieces.

Wendy P.

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I guess I consider my beliefs as part of who I am.

And questioning those (both the beliefs and myself) are part of a routine that I try to practice on a regular basis. 

If those beliefs don't stand up to scrutiny, or the principles they are based on change in a fundamental way, then it's time to decide if I keep them or move on. 

A good example of this is my support for the Republicans. It was never a strong stance. I've always disagreed with some of the positions. It was more I disagree with them less than I disagree with the Ds. 

While my principles haven't changed, the stance they took back when they took control of congress moved them far enough away from what I could support. 

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