My Friend 'R'

On average about 9 people a day read this bloggermathing. This blog you may have noticed follows more closely what I'm thinking about than what I'm actually doing. It is an imperfect window into my internal thought process, which goes on all the time but occasionally may describe something I did (playing with bubbles in the park (no bubbles is not the name of a prostitute)) but most often is what I think about something I read, or something someone said to me that reminded me of something I think.
As such I quite often get things wrong, particularly things I am quite ignorant of ie. motherhood, faith, being female in general really, being an NBA star etc. Experiences I haven't had or am unlikely to obtain.
This being said my actions will generally reflect my thought processes or stated opinion roughly at time of print. But in no way am I committed to them.
Ja, I finished the God Delusion yesterday, a 4 day turnaround on a Non-Fiction book has to be a record for me, and I haven't enjoyed a book that much since Ricardo Semler's Maverick or Musashi Miyamoto's Five Rings. It did infact make me cry, which is subject to such an important subject matter that I will post seperately on that later.
But Richard Dawkin's highlights the key advantage to teaching a child how to think as opposed to what to think.
It's highlighted in the logic ultimately used by religious believers (moderate to fanatical) and athiests which ironically changed my mind about the arguement put forward by Basil in common that Athiests can be just as fanatical as religious evangelists "our way is the only way" can be espoused by both parties.
But whilst both are aggressive approaches they are fundamentally different.
Different in that most athiests have not much personal or emotional investment in the Evolution theory, it simply has compelling evidence and as a model has yet to be broken on any grounds.
However an evangelical creationist persists there way is the only way by force of will, and rejects rational arguements or evidence to the contrary by simply not tolerating their resistence.
If you read his book which I realise most people who read this won't not because the 9 or so people that look at this every day or the 40 or so different people that read bits over a month (but never venture to explore old posts) probably don't have time to read Dawkin's, any content of Land Values Research Group Reports or Michael Jordan's auto biography.
If they are in the working world or even studying at a tertiary level my experience of a lot of people don't read what I say based on recommendations, nor at the rate I do recreationally and furthermore would rather read in their own field of influence.
Similarly I am not going to go read all the reference books Richard Dawkins refers to in the God Delusion, because I find Dawkin's book (infact the major attraction is) efficient in covering the subject.
The point is, though my posts reflect my thought processes I am not committed to dogmatically hindering my development by insisting at any stage I have landed on anything more than a workable theory on how to conduct myself.
Simply put, and perhaps self evidently, I think these thoughts with or without an audiance, I am merely disclosing them on my blog for two reasons.
1. People can judge my appeal.
2. I gain exposure to recieving feedback on thoughts I may have that are infact reinventing the wheel or making common mistakes.

An example may be I was a believer in raw capitalism and never thought much at all about land value taxation. Similar to a creationist hearing the Big Bang theory from a trusted source for the first time may have their consciousness raised to a new level so too did Land Values change my entire world perspective.
That's one and the most dramatic such example.

My friend 'R' told me 'asking someone's opinion is one of the greatest compliments you can pay someone' two years ago I was consciously aware that neither me, my siblings or my father ever felt comfortable asking for help.
I have discovered the benifits in that time of asking for help as to how much easier it makes it to achieve my goals.
But from this same school of behaviour I also almost never asked anyone's opinion on anything that wasn't a crippling emotional breakdown (one occasion I benifited from getting help in abundance) never in business and certainly never on this blog.
My thought process likes nice static sources of opinion (books) as opposed to being shaped by my peer group.
There's some reason behind this if my peergroup were creationists I would be a moron. Similarly Ricardo Semler's book represents unconventional wisdom that my peer group would generally run against.
But their are people such as my friend 'R' that are the kind of people not afraid to criticise that I like to surround myself with. Indeed my closest peers (in thought)are the ones that need no invitation to weigh in with their opinion, and we are closest in thought more because of how we think than what we think.
Sometimes we can be diametrically opposed and argue aggressively about stuff. But usually there is give and take, whereas if I argue with someone who doesn't think how I do, I rejects evidence, takes things on face value because its convenient I find their opinion not valuable because usually I can find it in a theologicans book or by watching episodes of 7th heaven.
But 'R' reads my body language and points it out to me, telling me when I am being defensive, when I am uncomfortable and so on. He also picks up on the subtle things I say because I generally speak in an obscure manner.
Aka he forces me to be accountable and direct, he'll also weigh in freely with his opinion and in a short 1 hour session can provide me with a wealth of areas to develope on.
Its good, its also hard to identify what it is you don't know when you are ignorant.
For example to borrow from Richard Dawkins book again on atouchy arguemental topic called abortion:

A mother and a father
one has syphyllis, the other tuberculosis
the mother has had children before
2 were born blind, 3 were born deaf
1 was born with brain damage
the mother falls pregnant and expresses concern
do you abort the feotus?
Congratulations you just killed Beethoven.

Someone who doesn't know what they don't know might accept this at face value.
Infact many PL's stop there whether through conscious will or a lack of scepticism, won't even check the facts.
A sceptic would find out that Beethoven's family history doesn't reflect this by checking wikipedia.
I have heard a similar arguement posed (possibly more convincingly) about Steven Hawking.
I would argue that sure Beethoven's music is good but if it destroys the mothers own capacity to pursue her dreams I'm not sure how many lives Beethoven's music has saved.
Someone more intelligent than me would build there case that if conception has happened we are obliged on the arguement of potential to not terminate the pregnancy then arguably women should be in no other state ever than pregnant, even should ethically submit to being raped because it may result in a talanted musical composer.
I listen to Beethoven's music on one or two occasions but I'm pretty sure it doesn't do much to help rape victims recover from the violation.

But that's a touchy subject, in fact if I support it too vocally there may be some people driven by their conviction that life is sacred to brutally end mine without any sense of irony.
The point being, if you easily back down from arguements when people spout jargon at you the thing to do is go examine what the jargon means, get yourself up to that level, aka learn.
So what if nobody comments on my private thoughts... I guess I just have to conclude that they

1. are embarassed to voice their own thoughts
2. (most likely) don't have time
3. don't understand what I'm thinking about and accept it at face value.

2 is no help to you, particulalry if you have no time to read (and read more than crime fiction or Dan Brown)
1 & 3 is no help to either of us eh?