Knowing - Knowing and Intelligence

Written by Tony Schirtzinger, MSSW, CICSW

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Your IQ isn't going to change. Your EQ can probably only be improved a little. You can't increase your speed of comprehension much. And you can't do a lot about the natural rate of decline in what you remember.

Besides all that, you know almost nothing at all about most areas of life! What can you do?

You can accept the human condition and stop worrying about how you compare - to test scores, to yourself in the past, or to others. You can focus on using what you know right now, today,
to your own best advantage.

Knowing #3: Your Core Beliefs

If you've read the first two topics on "knowing," you can see that there are many things we don't know and never will know. And yet we survive. How do we do that?

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We do it by adopting a few core beliefs that we use to explain all the things we don't understand. These beliefs are helpful,
because they make us think we are right when we really need to believe it. But every such belief is also wrong to some extent because the truth is that much of the time we just don't know.

OPEN AND CLOSED SYSTEMS OF THOUGHT

Someone with an open-ended system of thought knows that some day they might be proven wrong. They aren't afraid of being wrong, so they are open to new information when it comes along.

Someone with a closed-ended system believes they can never be proven wrong. They always have a way of explaining away any new information that comes their way.

"KISS AN ANGEL GOOD MORNING"

I was on my way to a workshop where I was going to teach about all this. The radio was playing a country song that kept repeating: "Kiss an angel good morning, and love her like the devil when you get back home."

I decided I'd tell the class that I could explain absolutely everything through this belief. "Ask me anything," I said.

Here are some of the questions I got, and my answers to them:

"Why are so many people depressed?" They don't have a good lover to kiss in the morning and love like the devil when they get back home.

"What about anxiety?" They know they need that lover and they worry that they'll never get them or keep them.

"Why did W.W.II happen?" So many people felt hopeless about having a lover that they were furious.

"What about heaven and a hell?" Heaven provides a continuous lover. Hell is being deprived of it forever.

All I needed to explain absolutely everything was to start with the belief that I could do it! (Try it yourself! Use any belief you like. It can be fun, especially in a group.)

CERTAINTY

To be right about absolutely everything you only need to be so insecure that you adopt an idea and fight to the death to maintain it.

If this seems like an exaggeration, realize that every war was about two groups who were each willing to die for their own closed-ended belief.

YOUR MOST BASIC CORE BELIEF

Try to identify your own core belief. Yours is probably unique, but a few of the most common ones are: Take what you can get. It's all about honesty. It's all about love. It's all in God's hands.
Everybody's out to get you. Just live for today.

A PERSONAL EXAMPLE

My own core belief is close to "It's all about love." It's important for me to realize that my system cannot explain Hitler and other such horrors.

I still like my system though, because it explains more to me about how the world works than any other. But I'm never shocked to learn that there are things I just can't explain.

Whatever your core belief is, know there are going to be some big exceptions to it. Be proud of yourself for noticing these exceptions when you find them. Know also that if you find too many exceptions you will eventually change your belief to something you see as more reasonable.
It might be wise to see a therapist during this transition.

BEWARE OF CLOSED SYSTEMS

People with closed systems don't get along with anyone who disagrees with them.
And eventually that's everyone. They find themselves thinking and saying some quite ridiculous things (like the "Kiss an Angel" stuff).

Those who are most intent about maintaining their beliefs take the huge risk of going through an extremely painful emotional deterioration when they finally have to face that their house of cards has fallen.