Not everything is an opinion, some are well researched thoughts

I recently read Carl Jung's work, for those who don't know him, Jung is considered as one of the founding fathers of psychotherapy. Jung worked extensively on dream interpretation, the human psyche, and behavior. Jung is one of the most famous men in his field, definitely top 100 famous people of the entire 20th century. His ideas are inspiring and give a new framework to think about human life and action. Today, I want to talk about, the projection of ideas and psyche.

I'm sure that you have met a few untrusting people in your life, I'm sure you have met many liars in your life, and also a few gentle souls as well. A person who is habituated to lying, cheating, or any other good or bad behavior, sees the same thing in the world. A lot of you already know this, I'm positive. But do you know we also project our inefficiencies to the world? More so than our goodness, a person who couldn't make money would often hate the rich and say things like, money corrupts. There is no doubt, that money and power are the biggest corruptor of souls, but that person's judgment is coming out of jealousy, not out of a proper analysis. 

Similarly, people who cheat in relationships, automatically assume that other people are also doing similar things, or at best, they are not doing it because they didn't get the chance to do so yet. Once again this might be true for many, but the person who cheats himself/herself is reaching this conclusion to save their face and hide from their guilty conscience. It's just a bad justification to justify your own shortcomings and misbehavior. 

Even Nietzsche has talked about this in great detail. People who are really corrupt and powerless, question the inefficiencies of the world rather than looking inwards. These people have no moral structure, they just take the moral structure of others, ones who they couldn't be, reverse it, and call it their own moral structure. Money, bad, fame, bad, power, bad, try giving that to a poor and powerless person, they will be even more corrupt. The issue is most people never learn to avoid the temptation of money or power. As often talked about in many books, who is a great king, the one who doesn't want to be a king. 

But the question is why am I talking about these seemingly random topics, what exactly am I trying to say. The point I want to make here is about the inability to perceive the greatness and the goodness in other people. If you are not good, you will not see good in the world, your world will be skewed, and the way you perceive and interpret the world will be based on fear and apprehension. Try imagining a kid who was born into a toxic family, and abused by the parents. That kid will always be on their toe before trusting anyone. They can never let go of their walls of apprehension.

I have been observing this projection of behavior for quite some time. Almost everyone is doing it all the time. In my own personal life, I've been called many times a person who is not open to new ideas. And the funny bit, these are the people who are the least bit rational. Now some of you might blame me that I'm doing the same thing, of which I blame them. But it is easy to disprove why that's not the case. Before I move on to explain the logic of this, let me just point out another example. Talk to woke people, they always feel that they are not treated fairly ever. They can never analyze their own privileges. I've seen this firsthand many a time, irrespective of culture, caste, and gender. 

Let me start with the premise that no one is born logical or rational. You didn't form your early childhood connections with your parents based on rational, it's purely out of emotions. And the way you are treated in childhood greatly affects how you are going to perceive the world when you grow up. Most people believe that because they have studied to a certain level, they have become rational and logical. That's just simply not true. Think of it like this, you have a guitar, but that doesn't make you a musician. 

Even if you are doing research, there is a good chance that you are not better than any regular Joe in your personal life in terms of rationality. Unless you have spent your life doing some really high-end research, rationality is not that easy to come by. Then how can I say that I'm more rational than the people whom I'm judging? Simply, because I study epistemology. I have formally studied logic and rationality. Not only that, I practice it daily in my schedule and yet I'm convinced about my irrationality. Most of my decisions, beliefs, and actions are coming out of my deep psyche over which I have no control, not even awareness of any kind. Most of my actions are just rationalized in a post hoc manner. Post hoc rationalization is an explanation that is given once the incident has happened. 

I've had a few disputes over people calling me out for not agreeing and being closed-minded. But I humbly ask them, why they think that they have the ultimate truth, and I simply tell them, they don't, no one has. I don't agree with people's point, because I reached my conclusions painstakingly, not by talking to my friends. My friends don't know shit, no one does, unless they study that thing systematically. I like to talk about human behavior because I've spent years researching such fields. In my free time, I often contemplate higher truth, and that's why I'm confident in disagreeing with others, not because I know the truth, but because I know that the other person is just more wrong than me. If with my years of systematic studying, I can't reach the final truth, how did they reach it without extensively working towards it.

You do not become good in maths without practicing it regularly, similarly, you don't become good in rationality, without practicing and reading it. Stop calling others irrational and close-minded, because the truth is actually the reverse. I don't confront Vivekananda's thoughts on the matter of spirituality, even If I don't understand something, I humbly seek a new viewpoint on what he is saying. But I'll confront an atheist, if they question god because they have not read anything. You seek answers from the experts, not challenge them with your limited knowledge. A less-learned person is in no position to challenge an expert. As I once said, an expert might be wrong 20% of the time, but you are wrong almost every single time, and even if you are right, it is just a fluke, not because you found the correct explanation. 

As mentioned above, a poor man might say that money and power are corrupt, but their answer does not come from the understanding of the nature of power and money, but out of jealousy. Lay people can reach correct conclusions at times, but the explanations they give are completely wrong. Imagine you are doing multiple-choice questions, choose any option, sooner or later you will mark some correct answer, but that doesn't mean you understand the subject.

I've pointed out this flaw to a few, and somehow they can never understand this point. They keep saying that I'm showing off my knowledge, but they don't know my truth, how can they, they barely know their own truth. If they themselves study a lot, they will understand that people derive real joy in sharing knowledge, it's not done out of showing off. Nothing makes me happier than when I make someone think. It's like a piece of art, I want everyone to see it and appreciate the nature of the art, not the artist. I don't care if people value me or not, I should be valued more for my actions, not just for my words. But the words should be judged on their own merit, no matter who spoke them. A truth will remain true even if it is spoken by the biggest liar in the world.

Learn to disassociate ideas and people, people are not just ideas, we are much more than that, we share a much deeper connection. If I'm criticizing your viewpoint, that doesn't mean I don't respect you. It is simply a philosophical disagreement. I treat even the staunchest of atheists with full respect. Don't let your fragile ego keep you away from learning the truth and expand your vision. 

People rarely change their behavior and nature, only with extreme hard work and systematic study would you be able to evolve sufficiently to change. In my personal life, I had the good fortune of seeing two such big changes. Going from atheism to a believer and from extroversion to ambiversion. And both of them didn't happen because some idiot told me and gave their perspective. The first happened because I read greats like Vivekananda and Adi Shankara. And the latter was something I got forced into by the place I lived in. 

Please learn to respect what is an opinion and what is a well-researched thought, just like E=MC^2 or gravity is not an opinion, similarly, there are many conclusions about social issues that can be derived by reading different literature and systematic methods of rationality like the Greek's or Samkhya's.

PS: I've done my personality test, in terms of thinking rationally and being open to new ideas, I'm on the extreme high end of that spectrum. And a person who is below average in this category tells me I should be more open, and I wonder, what should I say or should I say quietly.